About the play
Boys In The Band, written by Mart Crowley and first staged off-Broadway in 1968, is a landmark of American theatre and a foundational work of post-war queer drama. The play takes place during a birthday party in a New York apartment and tracks the dynamics between a group of nine men over the course of an evening that escalates in unexpected directions. The play has been revived several times across its history and the recent Broadway revival put the work back into wide circulation.
About the production
The Yarram Theatre Group's production has been in development for over a year. The director is a guest director with professional credits across the Melbourne theatre scene who has worked with the Yarram Theatre Group on a previous community production. The cast is drawn from the Yarram group itself plus a small number of community theatre members from the surrounding towns. The production team includes a professional lighting designer and a sound designer, both engaged for this production through the venue's small grant programme for community theatre.
The production is presented in the Studio rather than the Main Theatre, which suits the play's intimate single-room setting. The set is built to fit the Studio space and uses the natural depth of the black box to suggest the apartment.
Content note
The play contains language and themes that have, in the play's history, been variously characterised as a record of the period in which it was written and as content that some audience members may find difficult. A content note is in the programme and a brief verbal content note is given by the front-of-house team before each performance.
The 2015 production
The Studio previously hosted a community theatre production of Boys In The Band in 2015. The 2015 production has its own archive page.
Booking
Three performances in the Studio. Tickets through the box office. General admission seating in the Studio; doors open thirty minutes before curtain.