Douglas Carter Beane's story of a homosexual nance struggling to live in a dangerous time.
Story:
It’s 1937 New York: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia is looking to clean up the city before the World’s Fair arrives, and his biggest target is burlesque. Enter Chauncey Miles and the other stars of the Irving Place Theatre, who find themselves in danger of losing their jobs. Chauncey is a celebrated “nance” performer (a stereotypical gay character in burlesque) and unlike other “nances,” Chauncey is also gay offstage. When he falls in love with a young drifter named Ned, his carefully constructed world begins to crumble.
Fun Fact
In the world of 1930’s burlesque, a nance was a wildly popular character, a stereotypically camp homosexual man, most times played by a straight performer.