Burlesque Drama The Nance, Starring Nathan Lane, Begins Performances on Broadway

The Broadway premiere of Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance, starring two-time Tony and Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner Nathan Lane, begins performances at the Lyceum Theatre on March 21. Directed by Jack O’Brien, the Lincoln Center Theater production officially opens on April 15.

In addition to Lane, The Nance stars Tony winner Cady Huffman, Andréa Burns, Lewis J. Stadlen, Jenni Barber and Jonny Orsini.

The play's title refers to a derogatory slang word for effeminate men and campy homosexual characters typically played by straight men in 1930s burlesque shows. Lane will play Chauncey Miles, a gay nance performer working during the period when New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia was trying to ban burlesque. Integrating burlesque sketches into the drama, The Nance paints the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life.

Hear all about this unique new show from the stars and creators in the video below.