ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a set of requirements that have shaped scenes involving queer intimacy on mainstream stages for the past ten years. These requirements are then set against a series of scene breakdowns from the popularized NYC productions The Inheritance, A Strange Loop, and Fun Home. By examining the staging of intimacy in these scenes that have appeared on Broadway stages post-2010, it also considers the legacy of the AIDS crisis in representations of queer sex today. The thesis addresses the following questions: Has theatre been the product of the cultural shift towards respectability in a “post-AIDS” America? How has it supported or fought against this shift? What representations of queer sex are “allowed” onstage and/or “allowed” to achieve commercial success?
