“The Boys in the Band,” Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about a group of gay men, which had a successful Broadway revival last year, will soon be a Netflix movie. Ryan Murphy announced the news Wednesday on Instagram. The entire cast of out gay actors will reprise their roles, including Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, and Matt Bomer. Prolific Broadway director Joe Mantello will helm the adaptation with Murphy, David Stone and Ned Martel stepping in as producers.
“The Broadway cast of ‘Boys’ was so important to me, and as equally groundbreaking as Mart Crowley’s seminal work,” Murphy wrote on Instagram. “Everyone in the cast was out and proud…and feeling so blessed to mark the 50th anniversary of Mart’s landmark play. The entire Broadway cast will reprise their roles in the film.”
A groundbreaking work in the queer canon, “The Boys in the Band” follows a group of gay male friends who convene in an Upper East Side apartment for a birthday party in 1968. The relationships and conflicts reveal themselves throughout the evening, and the script uses various characters to explore self-loathing and the internal struggles unique to gay men. When it premiered, it was hailed as a rare depiction of gay life to celebrate its gay characters. Over time, however, the play has been criticized for representing internalized homophobia and upholding harmful stereotypes.
Murphy and Mantello’s version will be the second film adaptation of the seminal work. In 1970, William Friedkin directed a version with a screenplay by Crowley himself. It received a generally favorable critical reception at the time, and is considered a landmark addition to queer cinema.
Other returning cast members include Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesus, Tuc Watkins, Michael Benjamin Washington and Brian Hutchison. While an official date announcement is still far off, Murphy did promise ‘The Boys in the Band’ would arrive on Netflix sometime in 2020.
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