Playwright Mart Crowley, Best Known For THE BOYS IN THE BAND, Has Died at 84
By: Stephi Wild Mar. 08, 2020
BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that playwright Mart Crowley, best known for writing the play The Boys in the Band, has passed away. He was 84.
The news of Crowley's passing was shared on Twitter by Michael Musto.
Musto said he heard that "Mart had a heart attack, went in for heart surgery, and died a few days after the surgery."
RIP, Mart Crowley, author of the groundbreaking gay play The Boys in the Band. He was Natalie Wood's assistant and told me she encouraged him to write the play. He nabbed a Tony when the all-star version came to Bway in '18 and the movie version of that will come out this year. pic.twitter.com/ntNF9F5krn
- Michael Musto (@mikeymusto) March 8, 2020
Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi and educated at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. After graduation from the Drama Department he went to New York to pursue a career in the theatre and landed jobs as production assistant to the directors Sidney Lumet and Elia Kazan.
His first play, The Boys in the Band, opened Off-Broadway on April 14, 1968. He wrote the screenplay and produced the film version, directed by Academy Award winner William Friedkin. The 2011 documentary, Making the Boys, explores the genesis of the play and film. The play was revived on Broadway in 2018, and won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2019.
Crowley's other produced plays are Remote Asylum (1970); A Breeze from the Gulf (1973), which earned a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for Best Play; Avec Schmaltz (1984), written for the Williamstown Theatre Festival; For Reasons That Remain Unclear (1993), a pre-scandal effort to investigate sexual abuse in the Catholic Church; and The Men from the Boys (2002), a sequel to The Boys in the Band.
From 1979 through 1984 Crowley was the producer/co-writer of the ABC TV series "Hart to Hart." He also wrote several television movies and mini-series. In addition, he is the co-author of the children's book, Kay Thompson's Eloise Takes a Bawth, published by Simon & Schuster (2002). He is the winner of the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for The Collected Plays of Mart Crowley.
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