Torch Song Trilogy

(Paperback)

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Description

A new edition of the classic drama of gay life in New York in the 1970s and 80s-winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, now coming to Broadway in a revival hailed as "irresistibly compelling" by The New York Times. What begins as a chance encounter in a New York nightclub leads drag queen Arnold Beckoff on a hilarious yet touching pursuit of love, happiness, and a life of which he can be proud. From a failed affair with a reluctant lover, to a committed relationship with a young model and the promise of a stable family, Arnold's struggle for acceptance meets its greatest challenge in his intolerant mother. This edition contains for the first time ever both the original scripts for the three one-act plays (International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First!) as they were performed in the 1980s, as well as the revised script for the 2017 revival that condensed all three into the play Torch Song. It also includes a never-before-published introduction by Harvey Fierstein, as well as photographs from both the original production and the revival starring Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl and directed by Moises Kaufman.

Reviews

Harvey Fierstein has created characters so vivid and real that they linger in the mind, talking the night away, long after the lights have been turned out and everyone has left.Time

Gorgeously funny . . . a devastatingly comic play with just the right resonances.New York Post

Sassy, sweet, and moving.People

Author Bio

Harvey Fierstein is the Tony Award-winning author of Torch Song Trilogy and La Cage Aux Folles. His other theater writing includes Kinky Boots (Tony-nominated), Newsies (Tony-nominated), Casa Valentina (Tony-nominated), A Catered Affair (twelve Drama Desk nominations), Safe Sex, Spookhouse, and Legs Diamond, among others. He wrote the teleplays of Hairspray Live! and The Wiz Live!, both for NBC. For HBO hes written On Tidy Endings (Ace Award), The Sissy Duckling (Humanitas Award), and Common Ground. Hes written political editorials for The New York Times, HuffPost, TV Guide, and PBS, as well as authoring the beloved childrens book The Sissy Duckling. Beginning his acting career in Andy Warhols Pork at LaMama, Fierstein is also well-known for his theater performances, including Torch Song Trilogy (Tony Award), Hairspray (Tony Award), Fiddler on the Roof, La Cage Aux Folles, Gently Down the Stream, and A Catered Affair, as well as film performances in Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, and Bullets Over Broadway. TV audiences know him from shows like The Good Wife, Nurse Jackie, and Cheers (Emmy-nominated) and recognize his voice from appearances on BoJack Horseman, Family Guy, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother, Mulan, and Sesame Street.