The Nance Show Poster

The Nance Critics’ Reviews

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. In The Nance, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles, a headline nance performer in New York burlesque, who also happens to be a homosexual. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints, with humor and pathos, the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930’s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life.

chevron Show Overview

About The Nance

What Is the Story of The Nance?
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 (Nathan Lane) 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 (Jonny Orsini), his carefully constructed world begins to crumble. Douglas Carter Beane’s moving new drama follows Chauncey as he struggles to live as a gay man in a dangerous time.

Reviews

critics reviews Critics’ Reviews (4)
A collection of our favorite reviews from professional news sources.
Backstage

"Douglas Carter Beane's 'The Nance' is a bold, brave play, in which this eminent theatrical boulevardier reaches for something deeper and darker. The show offers taut direction from Jack O'Brien and a tour de force turn from the brilliant Nathan Lane. "

Backstage

Erik Haagensen

Time Out New York

"The season isn’t over yet, but 'The Nance' may turn out to be its dramatic high point. 'The Nance' is howlingly funny, with several laugh-out-loud burlesque interludes. Perhaps it's heteronormative of me to say, but 'The Nance' can attract man or woman, gay or straight-even the undecided. "

Time Out New York

David Cote

USA TODAY

"No living stage actor can make an audience laugh more adroitly than Nathan Lane. His wry line shadings, priceless expressions and expertly timed pauses have produced some of Broadway's funniest moments in recent decades. So it's happy news that Douglas Carter Beane's 'The Nance' which opened Monday at the Lyceum Theatre, offers Lane the juiciest role that he has had since 2001's 'The Producers'."

USA TODAY

Elysa Gardener

"Directed with subtlety and tenderness by Jack O'Brien, this is a bittersweet tale of repression and rebellion wrapped up in a valentine to a lost theatrical art form. Lane as the tortured soul at the play's heart is magnificent -- showing sides that are charming, witty, savage, self-destructive and yearning. One of the best scenes is toward the end when a self-loathing Miles returns to the stage in full-on drag. He has dropped the nance act and is playing an old whore named Hortense. Lane is still funny but seems thoroughly and unbearably broken. It is heartbreaking."

AP

Mark Kennedy

Back to Top