Image courtesy of the artist / Provided by official site.
Pride Month — which really should be Pride Season or Pride Year — is in full swing in New York City and around the world. One of the most anticipated events celebrating LGBTQ+ people and culture is the New York debut of Rob Madge’s show My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?), playing a special engagement, June 12-15, at New York City Center in Midtown Manhattan.
The show tells the story of Madge’s childhood, when they would express their love of musical theater by staging big show numbers in their living room, all with the loving support of their family, especially their father. My Son’s a Queer promises to re-create these moments from Madge’s life, with some extra surprises for this limited NYC run.
“I’m very grateful and lucky,” Madge said in a recent phone interview about the City Center run. “Back in 2022, I was performing the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and I got a call from my UK producer saying, ‘You need to make sure we’ve sold out today.’ And I said, ‘How come?’ And he said, ‘Well, this producer is in from New York,’ so I got on my big old yellow bell dress I used to fly at the show. And I got around the streets of Edinburgh and made sure we packed the house out. Then since then, those New York producers enjoyed themselves thankfully, and it’s been a long journey getting to City Center. We originally were meant to go to Broadway in February 2024. We had to press pause, so now coming back bigger and better and stronger feels really special. And it’s a nice full-circle moment for the show.”
Madge wrote My Son’s a Queer as a hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted to flex their writing muscles and stay occupied during lockdown, but they never intended their writing to see the light of day. It was more an exercise in personal narrative, almost like writing a diary.
“We didn’t know where we stood in the theater climate during that time,” Madge said. “The fact it got put on at all in the first place was overwhelming, and then with each new iteration, we’ve been really lucky to have somebody that has come along with a golden ticket to another brilliant opportunity for the show. It’s sort of a domino effect that I can’t believe has happened. I’m just lucky to still be working on it and to still have those opportunities really. I don’t take it for granted.”
The City Center weekend of performances will essentially be the same play that ran in Edinburgh, but with a “few extra sparkles,” as Madge put it. The actor definitely wants these performances to have a large impact on the audience, especially since some in the crowd were probably hoping for that Broadway run last year.
“We’re not doing things by halves, so you can expect the works and a bit more,” they said. “We’ve got a live band for a start, which we’ve never had before. There are new elements to the show that I haven’t even experienced yet, and the script is going to be slightly different and adapted for an American crowd. So, if you’ve seen the show before, it’s what you know and love, but with a few tweaks to suit New York City.”
Madge said My Son’s a Queer is a different type of story than maybe what audience members are expecting. This difference in the narrative is done on purpose.
“It’s very intentionally not a queer story rooted in trauma or shame, not saying that those stories aren’t valid and unfortunately reflective of a lot of people’s experience sadly,” they said. “But if we don’t show the alternative, if we don’t show an audience that queer lives can be joyful and celebratory and full of love, then we’re not holding up a mirror to a society that could be. We are dwelling on the society that people would like us to live in, and I’m going by the motto now that LGBTQ people aren’t to be pitied or feared, rather we’re to be envied.”
Madge added: “We lead the most fantastic, brilliant, colorful, vibrant lives, and we’re full of love and laughter and light. And I wanted to write a show that celebrates that, and I wanted to offer parents in particular a model of what could be. If you love and support your child unconditionally, the world can be so much brighter, and it’s not as difficult as some people would like us to believe it is. It’s very easy to love your child unconditionally. That’s the message.”
The show is completely autobiographical, and Madge said some audience members have been amazed by what they see. For example, Madge re-creates large theatrical shows that they used to stage in their living room. Yes, that actually happened, smoke machines included.
“And I’ve got the VHS tapes to prove it,” Madge said. “I was really blessed to have the most supportive family unit in my parents and grandparents, and I want to show them off essentially. But for a lot of people, my normal seems so extraordinary, which is so unfortunate. … I took it for granted. It was a given that, of course, my father would dress up as Ursula and let me be Ariel on a Sunday afternoon.”
The show essentially evolved from Madge first sharing these home videos on Twitter during lockdown. They thought the selections were funny, especially their attempt to stage a Disney parade in the house at the age of 12.
“I shared them thinking they were funny, but the show came about because people were kind of moved by the image of a supportive father figure to a very obviously flamboyant kid,” they said. “So I really wanted to pay tribute to those parents because there are plenty of them that do exist out there, people that support their kids, but parenthood in queer stories is often so full of shame and trauma, I wanted to show the very real alternative.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?), written by and starring Rob Madge, will play June 12-15 at New York City Center in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
