This is a guest article By Peter Royston 

I hope one day Broadway will be available to marginalized people like myself. But the way Lempicka was dismissed, shunned, and berratted, does not bode well. Lempicka IS a new musical based on the life and times of artist Tamara de Lempicka. The Broadway production closed after 41 performances.

In an alternate reality our industry would be ready for the complex multilayered music, writing, storytelling and subject matter. Unfortunately, as evidenced in recent history (The Tonys, Critics reception, and box office sales), there isn’t room for stories that challenge and don’t immediately satisfy. I continue to find new meaning in each replay of the cast album. When will we ever see three dimensional stories about queer people permeate and thrive.

What happened to Lempicka feels like an outrage. Like it happened to all of US. It was the universal feeling of heartbreak and being dismissed as a queer person and a human of other marginalized existence.

Theatre written by queer people for queer people hits different. Much like the image in the production of Eden Espinosa banging her chest as she pleads for her male co-star to fight for them in the song “Speed”. A recent example of queer stories for straight people is the Prom. It is fun, surface level, and the  tired troupe “queer is the victim.” Broadway needs work. Tommy is surviving even though it is the most racist, ableist, and homophobic show currently on Broadway. Lempicka flops despite being one of the most beautiful queer love stories ever told on a Broadway stage.

The production opens with a seventy-five-year-old bisexual. She peers over her sunglasses and asks, “do you know who I am?” On both occasions visiting my favorite production on Broadway, I was caught dead in tracks. I fell in love with the show in less than a minute.

“History is bitch. But so am I.”

Why did we not know about the queer joy and catharsis in Lempicka the musical? By we, I mean the theatre community, the queer community, the general public. Why was this marketing campaign so basic, catering really just to get straight people in the doors. When really, this musical was not for them. It was for us, the queers.

Even knowing the themes, I truly had no idea what was in store when I sat center orchestra left with my husband and Amber sang one of my favorite Broadway tunes, “Don’t break your heart.”

I have had the cast recording on repeat since its release and I replayed the show clips on repeat after my first helping of the show.“Don’t break your heart” and “Speed” are musical theatre gems that will stay in my heart through all of time.

Any marketing team human who identifies as queer would have sold the love story. Why weren’t Eden and Amber’s (the actors who played the queer love story) photo locked in embrace all over Times Square.

The staging fit Lempicka’s life.
I am consumed with the images.
The costumes.
The set.
The eclectic purposeful music and lyrics.

I’m going to say what I feel and not censor myself. I am a disabled and queer person. I am not here to make straight, cis-gendered, and non-disabled people feel comfortable.

Sorry critics and marketing team: you fucked this up. Move over. Please bring this show back and hire queers.

We control this piece of canvas.