Harvey Fierstein, accepting his 2025 Special Tony Award for
Lifetime Achievement at The Tony’s last month:
“Don't make Mommy cry. Oh, thank you so much. You gorgeous
people, I have to tell you, since I got that call, something's been on my mind.
This has all happened by accident. See, if it had gone to plan, I should now be
a retired high school art teacher. But what happened was my freshman year of
High School of Art and Design, this kid in my class said that his mother was
starting a community theatre in Brooklyn and needed kids to come and make
posters. I figured, ‘Why not?’ I don't know if it was the fumes from the magic
markers, but I entered the basement of a Unitarian church in Flatbush,
Brooklyn, and I found my community. Here were people, mostly adults, who saw
this odd, chubby, recently bar mitzvahed boy (who'd put a towel on his head and
lip sync Broadway show tunes into his bedroom mirror) and without
hesitation or judgment just welcomed him in. I painted scenery, I ran lights, I
pulled curtains. And by the age of 15, I was on the board of directors of The
Gallery Players, a theatre that still exists in Brooklyn. From there, I moved
to the world of experimental theatre in La MaMa, then Off Broadway. By then, I
was writing and acting in my own shows, and I was always, always accepted just
as I was. And then suddenly, well, not so suddenly, but you can get the rest of
the story from my best-selling New York Times autobiography, I Was
Better Last Night, at your favorite bookseller. So suddenly, I found myself
on Broadway with Torch Song Trilogy. It was only then that I was
cautioned, ‘If you want a career, keep your personal life to yourself.’ My
answer was, ‘Have you seen Torch Song Trilogy?’ It was 1982 and not
only did I arrive on Broadway, but so did AIDS. This was no time to hide. We
needed to go to war, and it was a war that cost us much too dearly. I might
never really understand how I survived those years, or the years that led me to
be standing on this stage accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award. But what I
find most humbling is the thought that somehow my journey means something to
you. There's no way to really thank even a tiny percentage of the people
responsible. No one does theatre alone, but I must call out my mother, who
dragged us to opera and ballet and Broadway as often as she could afford. And
my brother, who's sitting over there, used my shows as a personality test for
his dates: If they freaked out seeing his drag queen brother, they were
history. But I'd like to leave you with this thought, as many of you know,
there is nothing quite like bathing in the applause of a curtain call, but when
I bow, I bow to the audience with gratitude, knowing that without them, I might
as well be lip syncing show tunes in my bedroom mirror. And so I dedicate this
award to the people in the dark and offer my most profound thanks to all of
you, my community.”
It’s all community, and we when stand with one another, and
work with one another, and support one another, we win.
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