Moviegoers may be familiar with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane playing Georges and Albin, two gay men running a flamboyant gay nightclub in the 1996 movie The Bird Cage.
That movie was taken from the original French play from the early 1970s, called La Cage Aux Folles, which was made into a Broadway show. The plot centers around what happens when the couple meets the very straight-laced parents of Georges' son’s fiancée.
Skylight Music Theatre launches into the holiday season with their production of La Cage Aux Folles, directed and choreographed by John de los Santos and with costumes designed by Project Runway star Chris March.
De Los Santos explains that the musical explores a common human conundrum. "We have the family we're born into, and then we have the family that we create on our own: our friends, our colleagues, people we love to hate but have to love," he says.
"This musical is not only about the regular family, Georges, Albin and their son, but also the drag family, the theater family, that these people all work together in this tiny, dingy place to create beautiful things," De Los Santos continues. "It's also about how everybody's embarrassed by their family at some point, but when the chips are down, those are the ones who are always going to be there for you."
March doesn't hesitate to comment on the show's levity, however. "It is funny to watch a grown, forty-year-old man put on a pair of heals for the first time. We've been having a lot of fun in the fittings," he chuckles.
Skylight Music Theatre’s production of La Cage Aux Folles opens Friday night at the Broadway Theater Center and runs through late December.
