Queer Theater Timeline

By mspina
  • Period: to

    Queer theater

  • Spring Awakening

  • Oscar Wilde Trials

  • God of Vengeance

  • Morocco-Marlena Dietrich

  • The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman

  • Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams

  • Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

    Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, revealing to the public that homosexuality is far more widespread than was commonly believed.

  • Mattachine Society

  • Tea and Sympathy

  • A View From the Bridge

  • Look Back in Anger

  • Opening of Cafe Cino

    Joe Cino, an Italian-American theater producer, opens Caffe Cino. Caffe Cino is credited with starting the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. Six years after Caffe Cino opens, it hosts the first gay plays, The Madness of Lady Bright, by Lanford Wilson, and The Haunted Host, by Robert Patrick.

  • And Now She Dances by Doric Wilson

  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

  • Inadmissible Evidence

  • A Patriot for Me

  • Stonewall Riots

    Patrons of a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn, fight back during a police raid on June 27, sparking three days of riots.

  • The Hotel Baltimore by Lanford Wilson

  • The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders.

  • Harvey Milk runs for San Francisco City Supervisor

    He becomes popular for passionate speeches, brave political stance, and media skills. He also begins to do well in more liberal districts such as the Castro.

  • Passing By by Martin Sherman

  • Caprice by Charles Ludlam

  • Simo's Bayou by Medusa's Revenge theater group

  • Harvery Milk is sworn in to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

    Milk begins his term by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlaws sexual orientation discrimination. Only one supervisor votes against it and Mayor Moscone signs it into law.

  • The Fifth of July

  • Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone are assassinated

    Both Moscone and Milk are remembered throughout the city by having street names and community centers named after them

  • At The DNC, Democrats take an official stance in favor of gay rights

  • Execution of Justice

  • Belle Reprieve

    burlesque version of A Streetcar named desire, which plays with the gender rols put forth in the movie version.

  • Angels in America

  • Don't Ask Don't Tell policy instituted in the military

  • Rent

    gay adaptation of La Boheme in which they face HIV/AIDS instead of TB

  • Gross Indecency

    A play about the trials of Oscar Wilde. It explores what it means to have a gay identity versus just participation in gay acts.

  • The Laramie Project

    Based on interviews of Laramie, Wyoming citizens, during the aftermath of the murder of Matthew Shepard, and subsequent trial of his killers.

  • Vermont first state to legally recognise gay civil unions

  • Same Sex Marriage Becomes legal in Massachussetts

  • California State Supreme Court legalizes same-sex Marriage

  • Proposition 8 passes making gay marriage unconstitutional in California

  • President Obama officially repeals Don't Ask Don't Tell policy

  • President Barack Obama endorses same-sex marriage.

  • Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician elected to the Senate