Those Stodgy Republicans

Some things never change. Larry Fine, reporting for Reuters, finds that “Broadway’s Best Shows [Are] Too Risque for Republicans”:

Gay puppets, transvestites, assassins and a pedophile child killer piled up Tony honors on Sunday but those shows will be shunned by Republican delegates at the political party’s convention in New York this summer….Republican organizers, selling themselves as the family-values party, decided to buy tickets to tame shows like “42nd Street” and Disney productions like “Aida” and “The Lion King,” avoiding more offbeat fare.
Besides Tony winners such as the naughty puppet musical “Avenue Q” and best play “I Am My Own Wife,” about a German transvestite, other hits including Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” were vetoed by those arranging Broadway outings.
“The Republicans were so desperate to escape Roger DeBris, the cross-dressing buffoon concocted by Mel Brooks, that they have gone and picked two shows set in France,” wrote New York Times columnist Frank Rich, referring to evergreen musicals “Beauty and the Beast” and “Phantom of the Opera.”
Other shows approved as appropriate to entertain the faithful before nominating Bush for the November ballot are “Bombay Dreams,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Wonderful Town.”
In a year when gays from San Francisco to Boston have married, Republicans have been so averse to the rise of gay culture in America they have proposed amending the Constitution to outlaw same-sex weddings.
The biggest winner at the Tonys with five awards was “Assassins,” a Stephen Sondheim musical about nine killers and would-be killers of U.S. presidents, including the man who tried to kill popular Republican Ronald Reagan.
Three of the four awards for actresses went to African American performers in shows that delve into lives of the disenfranchised in the revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” and new musical, “Caroline, or Change.”
Irishman Brian F. O’Byrne won his first Tony for his portrayal of a serial child killer in “Frozen.”
“There was a diversity of shows honored,” said Bernstein, who said the awards refuted claims made in recent months that the Tony’s only honored mainstream, commercial theater.

Sure, I understand. We have here several different approaches to tearing down America and promoting leftism. I mean, how diverse can you get?

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