Mart Crowley Playwright (2 results)

Vintage script for the 1970 play. INSCRIBED by playwright Mart Crowley to author and film critic Parker Tyler on the title page: "NYC / 11-15-69 / For Parker Tyler / who makes me know I know very little / With warm and deep admiration / Mart Crowley." One of the first film critics to write extensively about experimental, underground, and avant-garde cinema, Parker Tyler served as the film commentator for Amos Vogel's film society Cinema 16 and coedited the Surrealist magazine "View" with Charles Henri Ford. He also appeared in several experimental films, most notably Maya Deren's 1944 silent film "At Land." His 1972 book "Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality in the Movies" was one of the first books about homosexuality and film, preceding Vito Russo's "The Celluloid Closet" by nine years. His papers are held by the New York Public Library. Crowley's second play, following "The Boys in the Band" (1968). Five men and three women attempt to escape their unhappy lives at a spacious villa in the Mediterranean, but ultimately find themselves trapped in their own petty discomforts. The play debuted at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles on December 1, 1970. OCLC locates one holding. Maroon titled Studio Duplicating Service wrappers, with credit for playwright Mart Crowley on the front wrapper. Title page present, undated, with credit for playwright Mart Crowley. 138 leaves, with last page of text numbered 2-47. Xerographic duplication, rectos only. Pages Near Fine, wrapper Very Good plus, slightly yapped at the edges, bound with two gold brads. Signed.

Vintage poster for three performances of the 1969 play held at the Callback Theatre in Los Angeles, circa early 1970s. Directed by and starring Gerald McRaney, who would go on to a long and successful career in film and television as an actor. Mart Crowley's off-Broadway play, about a group of gay men who gather at an apartment to celebrate a birthday, ran for over 1000 performances at Theatre Four from April 15, 1968 to September 6, 1970. In addition to being a landmark piece of queer theatre, the play also found significant mainstream success, and served as an inspiration and rallying point for many who would participate in the burgeoning gay rights movement. The play's influence and importance are evidenced not only by this early revival, but by the poster itself, whose subtly homoerotic image would have been provocative in that era (and probably quite a bit later as well). William Friedkin would direct a film version in 1970, adapted by Crowley from his play, and Crowley would write a sequel to the play, "The Men from the Boys," in 2002. 25 x 19 inches. Near Fine with a couple of tiny closed tears.