Wellington theatre audiences will get their chance to see the classic gay play Boys In The Band from 27 January at the Downstage Theatre. The cast of last year's hit season of the play at the Silo in Auckland are heading south for a three-week season. Silo Theatre director Shane Bosher says this is the third Silo production that has been staged in Wellington, following Bash and The Women. Set in the 1970s, Boys in the Band chronicles the hilarious and bittersweet social destruction of a group of gay friends at a birthday party. "One of the original impulses behind doing Boys in the Band in Auckland was to put on a large-cast ensemble piece that would serve the core group of male actors that we have here, in the same way our production of The Women did," says Bosher. "It was such a huge hit up here that when The Women did big booming business in Wellington last year at Downstage, we thought Boys was the next obvious choice." Bosher expects that Boys will appeal beyond a gay audience in Wellington, just as with Auckland's season. "I was heartened by that," he says. "We do programme plays with specific audiences in mind, yet they've moved far beyond that. Lots of straight couples came, lots of 'girls night out' audiences as well. Beyond the moral platform and the dramatic entitites that the play has, it's also a huge celebration. It's funny, it has verbal pyrotechnics, and audiences respond to that."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 11th January 2006 - 12:00pm