When Tony Award-winning actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein was growing up in New York City in the 60s, he was surrounded by the beginnings of the gay rights movement, and protest art and avant-garde theater was the norm. "I didn't know that being gay was sad until I got out into the world and they told me that," he said in our interview. "All the gay people I know are really kind of happy."
And writing from that lens has informed his work ever since. In his new memoir, I Was Better Last Night, Harvey shares the six year journey to get his breakthrough play, Torch Song Trilogy, on Broadway, and shares other behind the scenes stories from hit Broadway plays like Hairspray, Fiddler on the Roof, and La Cage aux Folles. He also told me about his relationship with his younger brother turned business manager, why he's happily single and sober, and how he thinks he'll be remembered.
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Margo Price After Cheating and Drinking
Your Estrangement Calls Answered Live
From Fan to Friend: The Unlikely Friendship Between Pico Iyer and Leonard Cohen
Why the Creators of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" Treat Their Partnership Like a Marriage
Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp Talk About Their Divorce, Anxiety, and Slowing Down
Trevor Noah Talks Depression, Radical Honesty, and Braiding Hair
Radiolab’s Lulu Miller Steals All Her Best Ideas From Her Kids
Estrangement’s Alternate Endings
Then I Blocked Them: How Estrangement Became Official
Estrangement Purgatory
Fran Lebowitz’s Guide to Life (And Parties)
Estrangement: We Were Close, Now I Don’t Know You
Race and Friendship After 2020: An Update
Between Friends: Stories About Race and Friendship
An Update from the Sex Worker Next Door
Sandra Cisneros on Sex, Aging, and the Paranormal
Singing in the Pain: Hrishikesh Hirway on his Mother, Grief and Creativity
Conversations with My Dead Mother
I Wanted To Be A 'Good Girl'
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