Patti’s tantrum, shirtless NPH, & Jinkx’s showstopper: 10 wild & queer Broadway moments of the season

It might be hard to top last season’s big reveal in the revival of Take Me Out, which offered an up-close (and wet) look at Jesse Williams and the fictional baseball team in Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning play. Fans were so excited that the production returned for an encore run. But the 2022-23 Broadway season also saw plenty of new plays and musicals.

Some of our favorite queer talent returned to the stage, and while Raoul from The Phantom of the Opera sang “Why Have You Brought Me Here?” for the last time when the show closed after nearly 14,000 performances, we wondered the same thing while sitting through some of the season’s biggest flops.

With the Tony Awards on Sunday, Queerty counts down ten of our favorite Broadway moments while already looking ahead to next season’s first big musical — Once Upon a One More Time (inspired by the music of Britney Spears), which opens on June 22.

Jinkx Monsoon is good to mama

It was only a matter of time before our favorite drag diva Jinkx Monsoon arrived on Broadway. Stepping into the role of Matron Mama Morton in Chicago, Jinkx revitalized the long-running hit that drew new audiences to Broadway. It was an old-school process for Jinkx to land the role — auditioning and two months of waiting before booking the gig. Audiences went wild when she debuted in January and extended her run to satisfy drag-craving theatergoers. Revisiting the musical, we also discovered Jinkx wasn’t the only reason to see the show — it still holds up after nearly 27 years with that iconic Bob Fosse choreography, sexy costumes by William Ivey Long, and triple-threat performances by its leading ladies.

Sean Hayes tickles the ivories

The Will & Grace star returned to Broadway for the first time since 2016, this time playing pianist and humorist Oscar Levant. (The gruff, chain-smoking supporting star of Golden Age movies like An American in Paris and The Band Wagon was a role of a lifetime for Hayes, who also had the opportunity to display his virtuoso piano skills in a climatic rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” — a haunting reminder of Levant’s longtime struggle with mental illness. Alex Wyse (co-writer and director of Summoning Syliva) appears alongside Hayes as a high-strung production assistant.

Don’t cry for me, Patti LuPone

While Hayes was excited to return to Broadway, Patti called it quits. After winning the Tony Award for her searing portrayal of Joanne in the gender-flipping revival of Company, Patti gave up her Actors’ Equity card, saying that Broadway had turned into “Disneyland, a circus, and Las Vegas.” In May 2022, as productions grappled with the pandemic’s impact, the three-time Tony winner screamed at an audience member to “get the f*ck out!” during a post-show talkback. Only time will tell what will come out of the diva’s mouth when she returns to Carnegie Hall on April 8, 2024, with her new solo show, A Life in Notes.

Think of me softly

The ornately queer-coded The Phantom of the Opera took its final bow on April 16, 2023, leaving behind a legacy of pointe shoes, brocade, and gay leading men, including Michael Crawford, Howard McGillin, and Norm Lewis. It also launched the career of Webber’s then-wife Sarah Brightman, who’s gone on to a bizarrely successful recording career, recording a dozen studio albums that converge her classical and pop sensibility.

But back to the man in the mask — what will we do without that crashing chandelier and masquerade ball? An immersive production of Here Lies Love (a musical about former Filipina first lady Imelda Marcos featuring music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim) may satisfy theatergoers with a taste for spectacle in an immersive takeover of the Broadway Theatre, opening July 20, 2023.

KPOP quickly deflates

Despite K-pop generating about $10 billion yearly revenue for South Korea, Broadway wasn’t buying. The high-energy musical KPOP lasted only 17 performances, further impacted by COVID infections among the cast, a botched marketing campaign, and a delayed opening night. The fallout quickly became a blame game among the musical’s creators, producers, and marketing team, with New York Times critic Jesse Green also taking heat for what was considered a culturally insensitive review, with producers Tim Forbes and Joey Parnes accusing Green of an “underlying ignorance of and distaste for K-pop as a genre.” Queerty had a different take, with critic Lawrence Ferber writing, “Even if you’ve never heard a single K-pop tune, it’s hard not to get sucked into the ferocious, fun, and dance-driven numbers, especially the extended finale.”

Fat Ham‘s backyard brawl

James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham transferred from Off-Broadway’s Public Theater for an extended Broadway run, and it’s even juicier than before. The retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet places the action in a North Carolina backyard, where, upon the untimely death of Juicy’s father, his mother has married his uncle. Expect a barbecue, karaoke, and challenges to toxic masculinity as Ijames brings the tragedy to the 21^st century.

“I mean, the young queer folks that I meet, a lot of them are from the South, are from small towns, they’re all like, ‘Thank you.’ It’s wild to me,” Ijames told INTO. “ It’s the thing you always want to do as an artist,  make something that makes an impact on somebody.”

Nonbinary representation arrives on Broadway, but the Tonys still need to catch up

Three standout performances made huge strides for nonbinary visibility on Broadway this season. J. Harrison Ghee stars as Jerry/Daphne in the musical adaption of Some Like It Hot, with a new book by Matthew López (The Inheritance) and Amber Ruffin that gives the character more nuance than simply a man in a dress. Alex Newell is becoming a regular at bringing down the house — first, as Asaka in the 2019 revival of Once on This Island, and this season as the “one woman whiskey dynasty” Lulu in Shucked. Even the classics are getting a modern twist. & Juliet considers what might happen if the young lover survived that fateful night with Romeo, assisted by her nonbinary bestie May (Pride50 honoree Justin David Sullivan). Ghee and Newell accepted their gendered Tony nominations, while Sullivan took a stand.

“There’s nothing more that I want to empower than non-binary people, to show that it’s possible to be non-binary on Broadway, play a non-binary character on Broadway and be nominated, and possibly potentially awarded,” Sullivan told Playbill. “I felt like I couldn’t choose. I didn’t feel right being in either category because it didn’t resonate with me. I decided the only thing that felt right to me would be to abstain from nomination consideration.”

Bringing new life to Death of a Salesman

Sometimes change happens offstage, which was the case with the recent revival of Death of a Salesman — the first time Arthur Miller’s 1949 play has been presented professionally in New York with an all-Black cast, including three queer actors — André De Shields, Sharon D Clarke, and McKinley Belcher III.

On recognizing queer liberation in an American classic, Clarke said, “The fact that younger people can come, see the show, see the three of us, and see that it is so possible. When they know who we are fully and they can go there on Broadway, and they’re being themselves. So, if there is one young child out there that goes, ‘That’s possible for me,’ then I’m doing my job. Something we say to each other each night, “Is shine bright so that someone else can shine.” 

NPH brought the skin to family-friendly fun

Did Peter Pan Goes Wrong need a shirtless Neil Patrick Harris to open the Broadway farce that pokes fun at J.M. Barrie’s classic children’s book? No. Did we love it? Almost as much as Tinkerbell being accidentally electrocuted and the revolving set kicking into high gear in the play’s dizzying finale. Clothed or not, Harris knows comedy and helped catapult the production during a busy month of openings. He’s since departed the show (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Ellie Kemper steps into the role June 20-25), but it’s still a solid pick for entertaining relatives or anyone else who won’t grow up.

Rapp and Haddad strike Gold

All of the action wasn’t just on Broadway this season. Three queer theater-makers made their mark in Off-Broadway productions. Comedian Judy Gold (directed by longtime friend B.D. Wong) took on cancel culture while paying homage to some of our favorite comedians in Yes, I Can Say That; Ryan J. Haddad wrote and starred in Dark Disabled Stories, a convergence of vignettes that explore life as queer and disabled; and Star Trek: Discovery’s Anthony Rapp continues to play to sold-out houses in Without You, a solo show that explores the loss of his mother while appearing in the original Broadway company of RENT.