Think back to a time before Peter Depp could be open about who he is on TV, a time before Adam Lambert, before Will & Grace, before the AIDS crisis, before HIV has even been heard of, before Pride festivals, before marches, before the Stonewall Riots. Think back to a time when Homosexuality is against the law and listed as a psychological disorder. This is the time of The Boys in the Band.

This June, Out Front on Main, Inc., will present Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band. As Crowley’s first play, The Boys in the Band was considered to be a groundbreaking work in American theater and the first truly honest portrayal of the lives of contemporary homosexuals when it opened in New York on April 14, 1968.

Taking place in an apartment in New York’s posh Upper East Side, the action concerns nine acquaintances who converge for the birthday of one of their friends. The group includes Michael (Thomas Prunier), a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic who is undergoing psychoanalysis; Donald (Blair Thompson), a conflicted friend who has moved far from the city to spurn the homosexual lifestyle; Harold (Peter Depp), who is turning thirty and is morose about losing his youthful looks; Bernard (BWW TN Best Featured Actor D. Richard Browder), an African American who still pines for the wealthy white boy of the house where his mother was a maid; Emory (BWW TN Best Actor George W. Manus, Jr.), who revels in his homosexuality by acting flamboyant and girlish; and Larry and Hank (Asa Ambrister and Ryan Vogel), a couple that lives together despite the fact that they do not agree on the issue of monogamy. Joining them are a male prostitute (Zach Parker) who has been hired as a “present” for Harold’s birthday and Alan (Patrick Goedicke), an old college friend of Michael’s, who claims to be straight but who becomes a little too emotional when his manhood is threatened and who is strangely reluctant to leave each time he says he is going.

The Boys in the Band brings to the world a picture of what it was to be gay in 1968. Directed by D. Richard Browder, Out Front on Main’s production will run Thursdays through Sundays, June 7-17, at 7:30 p.m. Out Front on Main, Inc. is located at 1511 E. Main Street in downtown Murfreesboro, beside MTSU. General admission tickets are $10 with a 50% discount for students and seniors. For more information and reservations, call (615) 869-8617 or visit www.outfrontonmain.com.