October 16: Torch Song Trilogy

Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy” premiered at the Richard Allen Center in New York on this date in 1981. The four-hour, three-act comedy-drama centers on a Jewish drag queen singer, Arnold Beckoff, who is disillusioned with love. The play spans more than a decade of his life, and by the third act, Arnold has lost his lover to an anti-gay assault, is seeking to adopt a gay teenager, and awaiting the visit of an intolerant mother. “Torch Song Trilogy” transferred to the Actors’ Playhouse in Greenwich Village in January, where it ran for 117 performances, then to Broadway in June, where it ran for 1,222 performances and won two Tony Awards and two Drama Desk Awards. Fierstein (born in 1952) played the lead role to great acclaim. He turned the play into a film in 1988. “At the height of the post-Stonewall clone era,” wrote The Advocate in 1982, “Harvey challenged both gay and straight audiences to champion an effeminate gay man’s longings for love and family.”
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” —Harvey Fierstein