Tony Award-winning director (, Hairspray) staged the Lincoln Center Theater production that ended its Broadway run Aug. 11, 2013. Three additional performances were added to accommodate the filming.
Lane, a Tony Award winner for and , starred in the central role of Chauncey Miles, a homosexual burlesque headliner facing a changing world and his own self-loathing.
The Nance officially opened April 15.
The Nance received five Tony Award nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Lane. The production won Tony Awards for Best Costume Design (), Best Scenic Design () and Best Sound Design (Leon Rothenberg).
The cast also boasted original Tony Award-winning Producers cast member , Tony nominee (Forum, The Producers, ), (The Performers, As You Like It), Andr猫a Burns (In the Heights, Songs for a New World), Geoffrey Allen Murphy (War Horse), (Sweet Charity) and (An Early History of Fire, Banished Children of Eve) in his Broadway debut as Ned, the younger lover of Lane's character. Understudies included , , and .
"Even in today's gay culture people do not realize how difficult it was for people in the '30s and '40s, not only to get together, but to be decent, to have a life, to not feel marginalized," director Jack O'Brien said in a previous interview.
Beane added, "I wanted to remind people about where we come from and who we are. There is still this element of self-loathing to us, and editing who we are鈥�'Shush, don鈥檛 say that and don鈥檛 be that way'鈥攎ore than any other community that I've seen."
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The world of New York City's bygone burlesque era was conjured with new musical material by (The Producers, Spamalot, The Scottsboro Boys, The Book of Mormon); and a revolving set by John Lee Beatty that took audiences on and off-stage as the action plays out.
The production also had costumes by Ann Roth, lighting by Japhy Weideman, sound by Leon Rothenberg, choreography by Joey Pizzi and orchestrations by . David Gursky conducts the band.
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| Nathan Lane and Lewis J. Stadlen | ||
| Photo by Joan Marcus |
Beane previously told 半岛体育.com, "America has the greatest knack for immediately forgetting any of its unattractive history the second we've moved on. As astounding progress is being made daily for gay folks everywhere in America, I just wanted to take an evening and remind us all where we come from. And teach the younger gay kids what has come before them."
According to LCT, "A nance, according to Webster's Dictionary, is 'an effeminate or homosexual man.' In the world of 1930s burlesque, a nance was a wildly popular character, a stereotypically camp homosexual man, most times played by a straight performer. In The Nance, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles, a headline nance performer in New York burlesque, who also happens to be a homosexual. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints, with humor and pathos, the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life."
Beane's new treatment for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical is now on Broadway. His works also include the Tony-nominated comedy The Little Dog Laughed, As Bees In Honey Drown, Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, Music From A Sparkling Planet, The Country Club, Advice From A Caterpiller and The Cartells. He received Tony Award nominations for the books to the musicals Xanadu, Sister Act and . He also penned the screenplay "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar."
Lane's numerous stage credits include The Addams Family, The Lisbon Traviata, , Waiting for Godot, , Butley, , The Man Who Came to Dinner, Love! Valor! Compassion!, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, On Borrowed Time, Present Laughter and The Frogs. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner and currently appears on "The Good Wife."
View highlights from the production:
