"The Boys in the Band" is a groundbreaking play by Mart Crowley, that earned historical significance by being the first successful work to unabashedly depict the lives of gay men. Over a year before the Stonewall Rebellion, it premiered off-Broadway on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four, where it had a surprising popular run of just over 1,000 performances. The cast included Kenneth Nelson as Michael, Peter White as Alan, Leonard Frey as Harold, Cliff Gorman as Emory, Frederick Combs as Donald, Laurence Luckinbill as Hank, Keith Prentice as Larry, Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy, and Reuben Greene as Bernard.

In 1970, "The Boys in the Band" was adapted for film. Mart Crowley wrote the screenplay, and William Friedkin directed it, before going on to earn notoriety and acclaim with films like French Connection and The Exorcist. The film was rare in that it featured the entire original stage cast from the play.

The story is set in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where six of Harold's closest friends are throwing him a birthday party. One of Harold's presents is "Cowboy", an attractive but obviously unintelligent male prostitute, since Harold, increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks, claims he no longer can attract cute young men. During the party the self-deprecating humor takes a nasty turn as the nine men become increasingly inebriated.

"The Boys in the Band" is bitter, bitchy, and scathing in the tradition of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Joseph Mankeiwitz's film All About Eve. In commemoration of the play's 40th anniversary, the film adaptation was remastered and finally released on DVD in November, 2008.

Purchase the 40th Anniversary DVD of The Boys In The Band here