The curtain rises on a new Queerties category — meet the Live Theater nominees

Who says bigger is better? We do when it comes to the Queerties! Voting is officially open for this year’s nominations, including the new Live Theater category. We headed to Broadway and beyond to see what our favorite queer theater-makers had in store. Let’s just say it was lit.

Voting for the 2023 Queerties is officially open

& Juliet

What happens when Max Martin’s Grammy-winning songbook converges with the Bard? You end up with a pop-rock Broadway confection. & Juliet considers what might have happened if Juliet didn’t die at the end of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Justin David Sullivan (he/she/they) is also delivering the goods as Juliet’s nonbinary bestie May.

Take Me Out

Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson hit a home run in the revival of Take Me Out, Richard Greenberg’s play about what happens after a major league baseball player comes out. And that’s not all that made headlines when leaked photos of Williams’ naked shower scene hit the internet. The production won two Tony Awards and returned for an encore run, playing overtime for theater and baseball fans alike.

Melissa Etheridge: My Window – A Journey Through Life

Two-time Grammy winner and 15-time nominee Melissa Etheridge brought the story of her life through song to Off-Broadway for a limited run. The powerhouse vocalist, musician, and songwriter spoke of challenging relationships, the loss of her son, an accidental introduction to cannabis, and plenty of other peeks inside her colorful life along with dozens of her famous songs, including “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window.”

Merrily We Roll Along

A Sondheim favorite among audiences, Merrily We Roll Along has been an enigma to producers since its famous commercial flop in 1981 (the show lasted 16 performances). But director Maria Friedman and choreographer Tim Jackson have breathed new life into the musical, which tells the story of three best friends (played by Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez) backwards. The Off-Broadway run was so successful that it’s transferring to Broadway next fall with its three stars opening doors for a new generation of fans.

Best of Enemies

Zachary Quinto Sam Otto in the bedroom as Gore Vidal and his research assistant/lover is only one of the highlights in this West End hit based on the real-life on-air debates between Vidal and William F. Buckley surrounding 1968’s Democratic and Republican national conventions. Quinto has been described as “perfect as Vidal, channeling cheery disdain with aplomb.” The play also foreshadows how television appeal could trump (no pun intended) authentic political ideologies in the era of modern politics.

A Strange Loop

RuPaul, Alan Cumming, Jennifer Hudson, and Billy Porter were among the star producers who saw potential in Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop, which also won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It took more than a decade of hard work to bring the show to Broadway, and its arrival signified a shift in the kind of queer representation seen in the commercial theater, proclaiming its spot as a “big, Black, and queer-*ass Broadway show!”

Titaníque

Our favorite couple at sea, Jack and Rose, reunite on the ship of dreams with Céline Dion in tow in Titaníque, a parody of the 1997 film Titanic. All of our favorite characters are along for the fateful sailing, including the recent arrival of RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Rosé as Victor Garber. Vulture perhaps sums it up best, saying “Swim, don’t walk to see this Céline Dion jukebox fantasia.”

Fat Ham

Playwright James Ijames turns to Shakespeare’s Hamlet for loose inspiration to catapult his characters into a Black queer retelling of family strife. “If theater is supposed to be a cathartic experience, this play left me feeling everything all at once, everywhere in my body, pretty much the entire time,” wrote critic Juan Michael Porter II as Fat Ham ponders, “What your life would be like if you chose pleasure over harm.” The production heads to Broadway this spring after a successful Off-Broadway run at New York City’s Public Theater.

DRAG: The Musical

Alaska Thunderf*ck and friends released DRAG: The Musical‘s concept album earlier this year, followed by a limited run at The Bourbon Room in Los Angeles, directed and choreographed by Spencer Liff. The cast featured hotties Nick Adams and Joey McIntyre, and a cacaophany of queens including, among others, Jujubee, Jackie Cox, Jan Sport, and Lagoona Bloo. Will DRAG: The Musical arrive in New York City with a Queerties Award in tow? Only if you vote.

The Collaboration

Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany reprised their roles on the West End for the Broadway run of The Collaboration by Anthony McCarten. Portraying iconic queer artists Jean-Paul Basquiat and Andy Warhol, respectively, the fiery play explores the artists’ real-life collaboration, art styles, and shifting power exchanges as they produced a series of paintings. A film version is also in the works, helmed by the play’s director Kwame Kwei-Armah.