Seat Filler: Best Theater of 2010

The 2009 off-Broadway premiere of Next Fall, a boy-meets-boy dramedy by gay playwright Geoffrey Nauffts, topped last year’s Seat Filler list of queer theatrical highlights ahead of treasures like The Temperamentals. Next Fall returned for a brief Broadway run this past spring, but with the exception of yet another La Cage aux Folles revival, the greatest of the gayest bowed on small off-Broadway stages. No hard feelings, All About Me’s Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein, but here are my 10 favorite LGBT-inclusive productions of 2010.

10. Orlando

In the Next Room’s Sarah Ruhl further explored sexuality at Classic Stage Company in her bewitching adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, a fantastical meditation on the fluidity of gender identity, in which a young English nobleman inexplicably wakes up as a woman. Taking a cue from the 1993 film starring Tilda Swinton and Quentin Crisp, director Rebecca Taichman cast fine androgyne Francesca Faridany as Orlando and quirky out actor David Greenspan — one of three men in a gender-bending Greek chorus — as Queen Elizabeth. Ruhl wisely let Woolf do the talking, opting for a descriptive third-person narrative in lieu of new dialogue — a children’s-story-theater style befitting a tale full of wit and wonder.

9. La Cage aux Folles

The show belongs to flawless Tony-winner Douglas Hodge as the aging diva Zaza, but it’s easier than I imagined to forget Kelsey Grammer’s Republican leanings and enjoy his pleasingly sung performance as Georges, a St. Tropez drag club owner, in this vibrant new Broadway revival of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s somewhat creaky classic. Aiming for rough-edged realism over flash, this smartly streamlined production, which transferred to the Longacre Theatre from London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, only allows for six Cagelles — plus out Camp star Robin de Jesús as the maid — and considering how things drag when the action flies the coop, it’s clear that these ripped dancers rule the roost.