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Exclusive: Harvey Fierstein Looks Back on His Life in the Theatre
Jun 7, 2025
On Sunday, June 8, Harvey Fierstein will take the stage at Radio City Music Hall to accept perhaps the biggest award of his career- the 2025 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Watch in this exclusive video as Harvey looks back on his incredible contributions to the American theatre and gets ready for Sunday night!
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three two one tina my guest i have known since the early 1980s he is a trailblazer in so many ways
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as an actor writer and gay activist he is a four-time tony award winner giving us such
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groundbreaking works as torch song trilogy and la caja folle to name just a few he is the best
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selling author of his memoir called I was better last night, which sits behind me and the award
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winning children's book, the sissy duckling. And he's about to receive the 2025 Tony award for
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lifetime achievement in the theater. Please welcome my friend, Harvey Fierstein. Yay
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Well, we got through it with no phone calls and everything else. Do you realize what an honor
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this is for me, seriously, to be sitting with you here today. No, we have known each other for three or 400 years
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I have seen, you have seen me trail toilet paper out of Ted Hook's bathroom
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You have served drinks. You have helped me load Cheetah into a cab
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Weren't you there the night that Debbie Reynolds got so drunk on the piano
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And the next morning, she missed her performance. And I woke up in the morning
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And there on the TV, they're showing you an ambulance taking Debbie Reynolds
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And I called Carrie Fisher. And I said, don't worry, honey. She just hung over
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I left her at 5. So that was the night we all hung out there
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You were all sitting on table 3, 4, and 5. The restaurant closed
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We served you all breakfast that night before you all left. Insanity
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Insanity. So just so you know, behind me, I have Cheetah's lamp that she gave me for backstage
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I have her lamp that sits in my house. And I have mine
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I actually have mine. You know, like I said, those were the days
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And I was there for the Thanksgiving that Ted Hook surprised you for
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I was going to bring that up. It was my first Thanksgiving on Broadway and I couldn't go home
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and you sort of realized when everyone else is having a lovely time
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you're working. And I got to Ted Hooks and he served us Thanksgiving dinner
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and it was, yeah. That's what he did. He was my mentor
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I mean, your whole family from Torque Song Trilogy, I saw the show downtown first at the Actors Playhouse
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when I first fell in love with that. And then you all moved to Broadway. And I mean, you all came in every night. I mean, getting to meet you and Estelle and everybody, Fisher, everybody in the show was just what a time we had together
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What a time. I mean, and it was so, it was such family and it had so much meaning for us to all be together
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And we would sit there while Ted Hooks, I mean, no one's written the story of Ted's
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Maybe you and I have to sit down and do that sometime. I mean, just to sit there with, I mean, I remember bringing Cher in
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She was doing Frankie and Jimmy Dean. She was doing Jimmy Dean next door
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We got back to Five and Die. and I brought and I wanted her to do Spook House
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I had just written Spook House and so we were having dinner, Cher and I
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and then how many nights with Amira and Rip. The craziness, the craziness
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and who was it that always wanted to sit in the back room? Richard Burton
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In the back room and you know, on the weekends the restaurant was always sold out
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so people had to go beyond the front room And I'd be like, don't panic. Don't worry. You'll be sitting next to someone fabulous
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And who would be in the back room but Richard Burton? Right. What a while. It was wonderful. It was so
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You know, I just reread your book again, too. I mean, just I sat here and I read your book numerous times
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But just rereading it, people don't realize the times we had that will never exist again
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Well, some of them were very glad about. We don't want to go through the crisis again
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Oh, no. Yeah. We don't want to do that. And then we had some other. Do you remember the stagehand strike? Oh, it was another musician strike. Oh, that was a good one. Oh, my God. The producers forced us to go to these rehearsal rooms where they played us these terrible recordings of our. And you had to go. The union said we had to go
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And I went, I was doing Hairspray at the time. And we went to the room and it came to my first number
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And they played this recording. And I sang along to it and I said, are you satisfied
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And Margot said, yes. And I said, but I'm not. I'll see you when the strike is over
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And walked out, started the actors walk out. What a wild times we had
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But, you know, I wanted to ask you, your Hairspray audition, you wanted that really badly, right
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Well, no, well, I didn't. The truth is that Richie Jackson was my manager at the time
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And he wanted me to go in for it. I mean, I'd seen the movie
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We were making the movie of Tortsong while they were finishing the movie of Hairspray
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And it was both New Line Cinema. So we had a bunch of parties together, Divine and I
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So we hung out. And when the movie came out, I adored it. And so when they said they were doing the musical, I kind of gave it a thought
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But, you know, I had never done a Broadway musical. Anyway, but Richie wanted to send me up for it
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And a certain wonderful casting director would not let me in, would not
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I mean, they auditioned everybody in the world and they wouldn't. And he kept saying, no, we don't, they don't want Harvey
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They don't want Harvey. And so Richie picked up the phone and called Mark Shaman and said
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do you want to see Harvey? And he said, yes, send him on in. And so I went in and there was Rob Marshall and Scott and Mark and Margo
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and everyone. And I brought my pianist with me. I brought the other one too, but it was a drag roll
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So you had to tuck that. so um and and uh and and our book and i sang a song and said thank you very much for having
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and i started to leave missing no no can you do you have do you have an up number and i said
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i said lenny do it lenny says yes we'll do this so we did that number and then they said do you
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have something else and we said yeah i can do and we sang my whole book and i and i got out of there
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i thanked them very much and i got out there i went to a payphone we didn't have cell phones then
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And I went to a pay phone and I called Richie and I said, please call them and please thank them
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They were the kindest people in the world. They had me sing my entire book
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They were so sweet. Obviously, they didn't want me in the show because they wouldn't
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And I said, but he said, are you done? I said, yeah, I'm done
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He said, you got the role. And that was that That right out of a movie Seriously when you come and think about it that like right out of MGM or something And Manny LePone going to play the role We glad you played the role just so you know
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That's it for it. Yeah. You know, I want to tell you, you're about to receive the 2025 Special Tony Award
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for Lifetime Achievement in the theater. This is, I have no idea what's going through your mind
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What does this honor mean to you? And have you been able to put the whole thing into perspective
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as we get close just next Sunday? No. Have I been able to put it in perspective
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No. I mean, because in a funny way, obviously it's like the highest honor
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that Tony's can give you because it's not for a specific thing
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It's for your lifetime's work. And that's really hard because, you know, people say
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I love doing this show. I love doing that show. and obviously because of who I am and the work I've done
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I do get letters and I get people that say, you meant this to me or, you know
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I was able to come out because of you. But this sort of has a weight to it
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I don't know how else to explain it. That says, and it's quite humbling
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It says your life has meant something to me. And that's really something
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That's really, that's really something. So, yeah, so I'm very, you know, and I think of the people who've gotten it before me
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I mean, last year I presented it to Jack O'Brien, you know. I sat there when Cheetah got it
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I sat there when Jerry Herman got it, you know. I never thought of myself in the league of those people
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you think of yourself, you know, as somebody who works in the, I'm one of the hardworking people in the crowd in my mind
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And so to be singled out is really quite something. Yeah. Because you never wanted to be an actor
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You wanted to be an artist, didn't you? Well, that's what I thought I was going to be
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I wasn't great, but I knew they were. I wanted, I thought I'd be a high school art teacher is what I thought
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at very least. But I thought maybe I could get some work at Disney doing some animation work
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You know, not everyone is the designer of the characters, but they needed people before computers
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They needed people to draw every cell. And I said, well, I could probably copy the cell, you know, do that kind of work or work
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I mean, I had friends because I was in the art world. I have my degree in painting
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I had friends that worked as assistants to very famous artists. and I thought I could get studio work or something
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So that's what I kind of thought I would do. The whole other thing sort of happened by accident
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I say to people, you know, life doesn't change if you say no
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It only changes if you say yes. You know, all day long we're asked questions
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Most of them are kind of silly, like you want to go for breakfast and you say, no, I'm doing this right now
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And most of the time we say no. But if you say no, nothing changes
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If you say yes, it may not be a great change, but something could happen
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And, you know, I really, I was in community theater, but there was an ad on the back of a review of a show that we were doing
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There was an ad for a show at La Mama, which I'd never heard of
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by Andy Warhol, and I was a huge Warhol fan. And I said, well, I'm sort of in theater
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I do community theater. I'm going to go down to that audition to meet Andy Warhol
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And I went down, and I was the only person cast from hundreds and hundreds of people that showed up
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And I remember I did, for my audition, I did Juliet's Balcony monologue
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Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush be paint my cheek for that which thou didst hear me speak
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But farewell compliment. I mean, I did that because I didn't know any better
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I was 16 or 17 years old. And there I was. When they found out how old I was, the show went from La Mama to London
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And I was there at the press thing at getting our passports
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And when they saw how old I was, they said, get out of here. You're not old enough to go
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Yeah. But that was life changing for you because you met a lovely woman outside who was sweeping outside this place of La Mama that you couldn't find. Right
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Yes, I was. Well, because it was East 4th Street. I mean, I didn't know the East Village very well, but there was the truck and warehouse theater on one side and there was New York theater ensemble that had that staircase on the outside
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And I couldn't find this La Mama thing. There were these brown wooden doors
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And there was this lovely black woman sweeping the sidewalk with all these bracelets and jangle, jangle, jangle
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And she said, can I help you, baby? And I said, I'm looking for something called La Mama
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She says, this is it. And I said, I'm La Mama, get in
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And it was Ellen Stewart. And that was the beginning of our relationship that lasted until she passed
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see that was a life-changing moment when you said i'm gonna go down to this thing and audition for
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this andy warhol show just to meet andy or whatever and he of course was not there because
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he didn't do very much of what anything but but i did get to meet him eventually yeah i just think
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that's so amazing though that you took that step and you met her outside she was one of the biggest
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influences in your life and career right with everything you gave yes there was there was this
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director from the gallery players, the community theater that I joined when I was 13. And he was
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the biggest because I never would have gotten into theater at all, were it not for him. But he was
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unbelievable to me. And then I guess Ellen would have been the second. Of course, John Glynes
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who brought Tortsum to Broadway. But there's, I mean, there's no way to say that
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no one does theater alone, period. No one. You know, go ask Miss Snook
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who's doing a one-person show up the block, and say, you're doing a one-person show
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and I think she'll laugh in your face because there's no such thing as a one-person show
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There's hundreds of people, and you may be the face out front
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but there's all these people behind you, and that's just the way theater is
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And that's what makes it a family, makes it so important and makes it all hold together
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So when did you first find your voice as a writer? How old were you
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What were some of the first things you wrote that you were like, oh, I think I'm going to try to be a writer
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I was doing, do you remember who Jackie Curtis was? She was a Warhol star
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And we were doing a play of hers called America Cleopatra at the WPA theater
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And I was playing her mother. and it was being directed by Harvey Tebel His brother was Ronald Tebel who created the theater The Ridiculous And Ronald and I were sitting in the house watching them rehearse some scene
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And Ronald was this great writer. He'd already written like three plays for me. And he said
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why don't you write a play? And I laughed and I said, oh, come on. And he said, no, you should
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And I said, honey, I can't spell. I can't spell. And he said the magic words to me that nobody even has to say now
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thanks to computers. But he said, there are people that get $1.99 to fix your spelling
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You go ahead and write. And that changed my life. I went and I wrote a play, and it was so awful that he said
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throw this out and write another. And I did. And that play got produced at Bastiano's in search of the Cobra Jewels
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And on opening night, the star of the show, during a scene that he was supposed to attempt suicide
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actually did cut his wrists. H.M. Petoukis, who's the creator of a different theater movement
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And Arthur Bell, who was a Village Voice columnist, was arrested leaving the theater for holding hands with his boyfriend
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We were walking across the street, across the Bowery from the theater to the restaurant there in the corner
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Oh, my God. I can't remember the name of it. But the restaurant there on East 4th Street
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And the police arrested him for holding hands. And the village voice said, actually called me, I think, not him, but I think Michael Smith, the critics, called me like the devil come to earth. And I said, obviously, I got something going here. And that was the beginning of it all
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you know your activism which i thank you for millions of other people thank you for because
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what you do you also give a voice to people who don't have a voice maybe where they live
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or the life the life they're you know they're living and they don't have a voice activism was
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something you started very you were very passionate about very early in your career when you started
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out, wasn't it? Well, how could you not? I mean, I, how could you not? I mean, I have never understood
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anybody in the closet. I just haven't. My father, when I was a little kid, I got a comic book and I
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wanted to take it to school. We weren't, of course, supposed to take comic books to school with us
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So I sort of hit it behind my back. And as I went to the door to leave the house, my father said
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if you're hiding something, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. And if you think it's the right thing to do, then there's nothing to hide
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That was the rule I was given. That was the rule I had to live by. It wasn't the easiest always, but it was a hell of a lot easier than the closet
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I got to say. When I would watch actors, I mean, I remember big stars threatening to sue the press if you said they were gay and others, you know, just making up stuff
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I mean, my heart broke when I would see somebody like Jim Bailey in a tuxedo on television, smoking a cigar
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They put a cigar in his mouth to try and make him look butch. And then in the next scene, he was Peggy Lee
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What, who were you kidding? But then again, people thought Liberace, you know, was heterosexual
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I mean, I actually had an argument with some Liberace people about that
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They wanted me to do something for him. And I said, I can't. I can't. If he can't come out, I can't be part of that
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I used to say, people would ask me all the time, with so-and-so gay suits. And I'd say, if you see them in public with me
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they're not gay. Because they would hide. They wouldn't come to Ted Hooks with me
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Though, well, there were a few. Yes, you and I remember. But trailing
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But yeah, it was... I never thought... I thought of the AIDS work as activism
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but I'd never thought of living my life openly as activism. I thought of that as, I thought of being in the closet was, was the act
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The rest was truth. And, and you never knew. I mean, one year
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I remember pride March. Well, it wasn't a March anymore, but then it was a parade and I got to central park and there was this whole
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bunch of people by the fountain, all dressed for a wedding, and they were going to have this gay
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wedding. And I stood there and I said, what, what are they doing wasting their time on gay marriage
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We have so many bigger issues to do than gay marriage. You know, who needs a honeymoon and all
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that? And I said to myself, but you know what, look at them. These are young people. This is
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their movement now. If that's the way they want to go, then you have to support them
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And they turned out to be right because a large part of the heterosexual community couldn't
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understand who we were or what we were. But when they heard we wanted to get married so that when
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somebody got sick, they could visit their lover in the hospital, they understood that. They want
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to get married so that when one of them dies, the other one doesn't get thrown out of the apartment
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They understood that They understood our need for gay marriage Even when they didn't understand the relationships
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So they were incredibly right I was incredibly wrong But very proud to have stood up for gay marriage
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Not for me But, you know, and that's the way the movements have to work Yeah
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You know, I want to get into Tort Song for a second because Torch Soul Trilogy was life-changing for a lot of us
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And for many theater goers of, you know, straight people, gay people. But we saw ourselves
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I always danced to my own drum. Like you, when I was never, I think I was always out of the closet
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My family just accepted it. I was never, you know, I was always Richie. I was always who I was
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So I didn't have the roughest time. But, you know, when we all came to the city
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we all wanted to find ourselves and find where we fit in. And then we saw your play
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and you know what you talk about in tort song i mean the relationship with the mother and adoption
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and all this stuff i mean this was so ahead of its time how what did tort song mean to you when
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you wrote it and what does it mean to you now and the legacy your incredible play has for so many
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people um when when i wrote it i was trying to tell the truth i was not making stuff up there
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was a lot of it that actually happened. Some of the stuff to me some of not You know like the third act we already done the second act
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and I was starting to write the third act and my friend Harvey, who I just talked about
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you know, who's directing, we lived in Park Slub at the time
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and he used to go up to Prospect Park to have sex, you know, in the park
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And he was attacked by a group of kids and beaten up
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They punched him in the eyes and he wore contact lenses and he cut his, he was a mess
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He came in, you know, and this is like four or five
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in the morning and I'm nursing him and all that. And I get him to bed and I sat down and wrote a tort song
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with the lover being killed. And, you know, it came out of me, the stories we had to tell
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Rosie was thinking of adopting at the time. And that's what gave me the idea to adopt a kid, was Rosie was struggling to adopt
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So this stuff came out of our lives. It's just nobody dared talk about it or write it down
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Or we were the funny best friend. We weren't the center of attention
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We were the funny best friend. We were the silly one or whatever. Which I'm, you know, one of the fights I had with Arthur Lawrence
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I remember when they made that movie, The Celluloid Closet. and Arthur was like
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I hated when they had the gy characters and I said I loved them
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because it was visibility we had visibility, we existed
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we may not have existed the way we wanted to exist but at least we were there
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and from being there we could build on that you love me being a silly guy okay let me try this let me try that let me try this
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and you will understand that I'm a human being um I always felt that way um so it's a different
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approach to the same and then I want to talk to you about La Cage La Cage is one of those musicals
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that came along at a time with the AIDS epidemic and everything else everybody thought the show
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wasn't going to work, yet there were so many, the straight audiences that fell in love with
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La Cage. I remember the night we were there and there was this older straight couple sitting next
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to us. The man was bawling his eyes out during Song on the Sand. And I mean, it was just another
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life-changing musical at a time when it probably shouldn't work, but it did. I mean, how much
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What did you enjoy the most about working on La Cage and realizing the impact that musical has had on just millions of people
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Well, the whole La Cage thing was so incredible. The whole thing, because you're working with Jerry Herman, who was, you know, forget the music even
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He was such a funny sort of strange sort of imp, like a sort of magical little imp
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I mean, there was so much, you know, every time we'd finish a work session, Damien, his houseboy, would come with a little dish with chocolates
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And you were allowed to have one. Jerry was allowed to have one. We were each allowed to have one
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That's because Jerry was always dieting. But, you know, we worked up on the fifth floor of his brownstone on the east side
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and this beautiful room with these giant posters of Mame and Hello Dolly and Mac and Mabel
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you know, those old Shubat Alley posters. And, you know, you can only dream to be in a room with the person that wrote these shows
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But there was this grand piano in the center of the room. And over the piano was a swing
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What was the swing doing there? Well, right into the show it went
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The end of the title song, George lifted up on the swing
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I wrote that right into the show. I mean, there it was over the piano
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So that was one thing. And then you were working with Arthur Lawrence
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who was one of the great pains in the ass. I mean, I don't know
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Did you ever get to work with him at all or meet him and spend time with him
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just a delight. He was always right. I mean, Arthur was always right
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but he was always right. And he had come from this world
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of battling because it was him and Leonard Bernstein and that child
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Stephen Sondheim, and Comden and Green and that whole real royalty of Broadway
27:57
And he was the writer. He wrote West Side Story. You know, this is the man who wrote, who wrote
28:06
Everything. Yeah, everything. He wrote everything. And all of a sudden I'm writing and he's directing
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And it's like, you know, I quit the show a couple of times, but he dragged me back
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It was, you know, the things I learned from him. You could only learn from a master
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You can't learn it from a book. You can't learn it from a teacher. You can only learn it from a master while you're working together
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Did I agree with everything? No. I mean, he stuck girls in the chorus line
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I mean, I'm thinking in my head of Bastiano's and these little, you know, the 82 Club
28:48
And I'm thinking that way about the La Cage. And he's thinking, you know, well, I've never been to France, so I didn't know
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and he's thinking this grand thing, and the proportions, everything was different
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and the three of us were so completely different. I mean, because Jerry was nothing like Arthur
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Arthur was nothing like me, and yet the three of us together created something
29:13
that has never closed. I mean, that show has never closed. Right now, there's a German production opening
29:24
a French production opening. They're talking about doing it in New York again
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It's being done. I mean, it's, you know, I have, we count them as four Tonys
29:36
but I actually have six because I have two for Best Revival of La Cage
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And now I'll have seven. So I'll go talk to Audra about this
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Where do your Tonys live? Where do you keep them? in my bathroom
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Listen, everybody goes there. So it's a nice place to have. It's my bathroom
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you know i also but they're there they're there i mean they're on this beautiful they're on this
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lovely show and and i and i and and it's and and i've got my christopher radco statue of me and
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and all these other things they're all together but i don't like well you see my barn behind me
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i don't like to live with my posters with the you they're all past yeah but they're the past
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And I want to live in the future. I want to live in, well, at least live in today
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Maybe I can't live in the future, but I can live in today. And that's what's important to me is to live in today. Go ahead. I'm sorry
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I cut you off. No, no. I want to mention the wonderful, the Harvey Fierstein theater lab at the library for the performing arts
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What a beautiful space you've created there. Oh, David. Well, David Rockwell created that. I mean, what a genius he is
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I mean, he took this room. That's such the right size for what it is
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I was scared it was going to be too big. And then when I walked in there, I said, no, no, no, this is exactly right
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There's nothing intimidating about it. It feels like a space you can live in
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And he managed to fit in that room. There's the two giant screens on either side
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There's a recording booth. If you want to do a reading, there are seats to pull out with bleachers
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If you want to do just a test reading, there's a table with chairs that comes out that you can just sit around the table
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If you and your friends love West Side Story and you want to dance the mambo, you can put that tape on it
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The original Broadway company doing it on both screens and you all can dance in the middle of the room
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They wanted to put a keyboard in there. And I said, no
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I said, no. Anybody these days can have a laptop with a keyboard
31:50
We need a piano. We need a place where you can hit a real piano
31:55
And we took my mother's piano, of all things, and that's what's in there
32:00
It's the piano my mother bought and made us learn to play piano on
32:04
And that's what's actually in the room with a needle-pointed cushion that she and I needle-pointed
32:13
So I'm so proud of that space. They've already written two or three musicals in there
32:19
and have done several readings and stuff like that. And I know one person who doesn't have a piano
32:27
who goes and books time there to go and play a real piano
32:33
The space is free to anyone who wants to use it. It's New York Public Library space
32:40
So all you have to do is book the time and you can bring your product in
32:45
There's classes that are in there. There's groups. I'm so proud of it. But David Rockwell, what a job he did
32:53
No, but this reminds me of what you learned at La Mama, a space to create
32:58
Right. And that's what you've given all these people there now in your space, in your theater lab
33:04
There's history there, too, of you that you put in there. Your DNA is in there, too
33:09
It's a gorgeous room that David has designed. But I just thank you for doing what you've done
33:14
You can even learn to run lights in there. It a lighting board and there lights in the seat and you can go in there and learn to run a computer light board Where else can you do that I want to talk about your best memoir which sits right behind me
33:30
Right behind me. I have mine right over there because I promised Judy Collins to mail her a copy
33:37
She's sending me her new book of poetry, and I'm sending her my book. It's an incredible book
33:43
I mean, it's a life story. There's so much in this. There's so much heart
33:48
is it's so wonderful you know you read some of these books where people cross their legs and
33:53
I've always said why write a memoir if you're going to cross your legs and I think what you've
33:58
done is you've sat there with I don't mean your legs wide open but I mean you just you didn't
34:02
cover anything up I mean it's such you learn so much about you you learn life lessons that you
34:08
went through that we can all learn from this and just what it meant to you to put this book together
34:13
Harvey this bestseller what it meant to you well it was it was one of those really strange things
34:17
because COVID had just hit, and all of a sudden we were all locked in our houses
34:22
I mean, I often lock myself in my house anyway because you write or you paint or whatever
34:28
and that's what you do. But all of a sudden we were forced to be in lockdown
34:33
And I said to my agents, I said, no sense in writing a play
34:38
This is not going to go very, this is going to last a while
34:43
What's going on now is going to last a while. And my agent said to me, why don't you write your autobiography
34:49
And I said, oh, I can't do that. And he said, but you're the one who always says you have to say yes
34:54
And I said, you know what? I'll sit down and I'll write and see. And I wrote a couple of chapters
34:59
And I sent it to my agent. And they said, let's see
35:04
And sent it to several publishers. And everybody wanted it. And I said, OK, maybe I should do this
35:09
And so I wrote it. And I had the most wonderful editor who was so gentle because even if things were wrong, the English was not, he didn't edit that
35:20
He left it to sound like me. So when you read the book, it sounds like me and it feels like me and it's as truthful as I could be
35:30
But I don't know that I could have done that without COVID
35:34
Isn't that funny? I don't, I mean, I don't know that I would have locked myself down because I got up every morning
35:41
I sat down and I wrote for three hours or whatever it was. And I wrote it in this period of time
35:45
We actually put the whole book together. The book came out, COVID was still going on
35:52
And I did most of the interviews for it on Zoom. That's how we all learn to use Zoom, isn't it
35:59
COVID was what taught us to use Zoom. And it changed, you know, it changed the world
36:04
but I don't think that book would have been without it, but I'm very proud of it
36:09
Well, you should be, because I'm sure it was very freeing. COVID was scary for us
36:13
but it was also a little freeing for us with Preston and I. I would do like Zoom interviews with stars during the day
36:19
Then I'd cook, we'd watch a movie, we'd go to bed. We fell into this beautiful thing
36:23
but it was freeing and scary all at the same time. So I totally understand what you went through with the book
36:29
Did you lose anyone to COVID? I personally didn't. Did you? Well, we knew Nick, but there was one or two people and some elders or whatever
36:38
So it was a very... We were also scared early on because these were healthy people that were like 40 years old who were like I don know We were just terrified Did you get COVID Did you get it during that Yes I had it I had it once But maybe because we lived through the AIDS crisis maybe because of that it had a different feeling
37:01
It didn't feel as dire. I mean I knew people were dying left and right
37:08
but it felt like felt more like a disease rather than I mean AIDS felt like
37:15
the world was coming down on us it was this judgment against us
37:20
it was you know the horror of that maybe having survived that
37:24
you can survive anything well that's what we thought too losing all of our friends
37:29
I still have a phone book that I keep in my drawer that I pull out once a month
37:32
of all the people that I lost during the backstage years and everything else
37:36
their name, their phone number is there. And I just go through the pages and I just look every day
37:40
And it was just, we felt the same thing. I said, when we got COVID, I was like, thank you
37:44
Let me get this now. And let me get through this. And we took our packs a little bit or whatever
37:48
And I said, now I've got, I've had it. And now I can move on because like you said
37:52
there were bigger things like AIDS that we all lived through and lost so many
37:56
people for. And I got COVID thanks to Mark Sheeman. because he insisted on throwing a party
38:05
for one of the anniversaries of Hairspray and did it down in the basement of the
38:12
whatchamacallit, you know, the... 54? 54 down there. And I said, oh my God, I don't want to go
38:19
I know we're all going to end up with COVID. And we all ended up
38:24
I think 11 of us ended up with COVID from that party. that's it's yeah totally it's like the first time we went out we didn't get it because we had it but
38:33
all these people would say oh i've got it i've got it i've got it now i want now i want to cough
38:39
you know you're also a quilter which i love i love when preston's getting ready for bed i go on your
38:45
your social feed and i look at all these beautiful pieces of art that you create
38:49
and i'm fascinated they're two-sided they're beautiful pieces of art did you see you use
38:56
I guess you saw the Cheetah one I did when Cheetah passed and the one I did for Gavin Creel when he passed
39:05
And I'm actually having my first show. I didn't want to do it in a gallery in New York or whatever
39:13
I was kind of scared to do that. So in a small museum up here in Connecticut, the Keeler Tavern and Museum, they're doing a show
39:22
I'm only showing 15 quilts, but that'll be the end of July, and that'll be scary but fun because I've never had a group of people see them
39:34
My quilts are not small. I'm such a size queen. They're all king size because I make them for beds
39:45
So even if they're art quilts, they're still made for beds. And so they're big, but I think we're going to be able to fit 15 in the room
39:56
So can anybody come up to the gallery to see these? Yeah, it's a museum
40:00
It's an open museum. So anybody, there'll be ads that come. I mean, it's the end of July
40:04
It the last weekend of July It only four days but it be But the cheetah one is in it The Gavin one I don think I showing in that Um but there some interesting ones I just I just pulled out
40:16
one that's, that was called the blue boy, but I, I thought maybe that's a little too challenging
40:24
Put it up there. We'll cut. You need, that's you. You got to put that
40:29
There are plenty of penises in my quotes. I could figure that, but they're really
40:34
beautiful pieces of work um you know just just summing up again I mean you've got a week to sort
40:41
of figure this all out of you you've given us so much joy with all of your all of your art lives on
40:46
I mean that's the one thing that you've done with all your plays and everything else and now
40:51
your quilts when you look back at how you all started I mean do you look back and say my gosh
40:58
here I was growing up and I had like a dream to do something in the art world do you ever sit back
41:04
and say, look what I've done or what I've achieved or what I put out there for the world
41:08
Yeah, that's the one thing I don't know how to do. I don't know. I don't know how to look back
41:17
I did to write the book. And the fattest part about writing the book was once I wrote each
41:22
chapter, it freed me to forget it. It freed me to say, go on. You've expressed that. You've told
41:32
that story. You can let that go now, that anger or that this or whatever, just let it go. So the
41:38
book was incredibly freeing that way. Since I got the phone call about this award and I've tried to
41:45
put everything in perspective, it's been really hard. And figuring out exactly what I want to say
41:52
has been difficult. I went back thanks to YouTube and I watched Cheetah's speech and
41:58
and Terry Herman's speech and Jack O'Brien
42:08
I was standing next to him last year but Terrence McNally's speech
42:15
and I watched to see what they had to say and it's sort of funny because
42:21
what I have to say is different and that made me feel like
42:27
okay maybe what you have to say should be said but we'll see we'll find out of course it won't
42:34
actually be on the tonys it'll be on pluto you gotta find pluto we're all going to be on pluto
42:43
i also want to thank you for writing the incredible children's book you wrote too the sissy duckling i give that to so many people as gifts for their kids and everything else i know
42:51
how it all started as the HBO and, you know, just so beautifully done
42:56
I mean, that we so. And somebody, some theater group has made it into a musical now
43:00
So I think, I think it'll be done this year. They're doing Sissy Duckling as a musical
43:06
So that's, that's lovely. Well, I thank you for letting me take this time to sit in your barn, my friend, just
43:12
so you know that. Well, just to be with you. It's always a pleasure
43:16
I mean, how we've known each other for only 40 years. I mean, what's that between friends
43:21
I adore you my friend and I will see you next Sunday at the
43:26
Tony's. Okay. Everybody will see you at the theater. Take care everyone
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