Will Ryan Murphy Bring Groundbreaking Play The Boys in the Band to Broadway?

Mart Crowley’s pre-Stonewall play The Boys in the Band could be bound for the Great White Way. According to The New York Post, Glee and Feud creator Ryan Murphy is aiming to produce a newly staged mounting of the 1968 work about a group of gay men who come together at a birthday party. Murphy is aiming for a 50th-anniversary production, set to hit Broadway in 2018.

The original off-Broadway production of The Boys in the Band, directed by Robert Moore, played a two-and-a-half-year run at Theatre Four from 1968 and 1970. A 1970 film version featured the original cast of the play. A 1996 off-Broadway revival directed by Kenneth Elliott played the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The Boys in the Band is widely considered one of the early groundbreaking plays about the gay community. 

With regards to casting for Murphy's production, The Post speculates Jim Parsons for the role of Emory, originated off-Broadway by Cliff Gorman, and Tony winner Neil Patrick Harris for the role of Michael, first played by Kenneth Nelson. This mounting would be the first appearance of The Boys in the Band on Broadway.