In the 1930s, burlesque impresarios welcomed the hilarious comics and musical parodies of vaudeville to their decidedly lowbrow niche. A headliner called “the nance” was a stereotypically camp homosexual and master of comic double entendre—usually played by a straight man. Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance recreates the naughty, raucous world of burlesque’s heyday and tells the backstage story of Chauncey Miles (Nathan Lane), a headline nance performer in the twilight of New York burlesque’s era. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints the portrait of a homosexual man living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930’s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life.
At a time when it is easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay, Chauncey’s uproarious antics on the stage stand out in marked contrast to his offstage life. Recorded live onstage at the Lincoln Center Theater earlier in 2014, The Nance is directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien.
Two shows: Wed, July 16 at 7:00pm & Sun, July 20 at 11 am at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema and Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema.
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