Harvey Fierstein

Harvey Fierstein is a Tony Award-winning playwright and actor who has been openly gay since the beginning of his career — never closeted and never apologetic. He wrote and starred in Torch Song Trilogy (Broadway, 1982), a deeply personal autobiographical play about a gay drag performer seeking love and family, which won two Tony Awards including Best Play. He also wrote the book for La Cage aux Folles (1983), one of the first Broadway musicals to center on a gay couple. As an actor he is known for Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, and Hairspray. Fierstein's decades of visible, unapologetic queer presence in mainstream entertainment make him one of the most important LGBTQ+ figures in American theater history.