Seat Filler: Best NYC Theater of 2011

2. The Normal Heart

Directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, Larry Kramer’s gut-punching 1985 drama about the AIDS crisis beat mightily with breathtaking performances by out actors Joe Mantello as activist Ned Weeks and John Benjamin Hickey as his ill lover. I found some directorial choices questionable — unnecessary scenic projections, for starters — but it’s best not to quibble with an impassioned treatise so cherished that it transcended theater.

John Golden Theatre, closed July 10.

1. Go Back to Where You Are
This ingeniously surreal, self-aware comedy could have only come from the odd mind of out actor-playwright David Greenspan. The quirky Some Men star played a shapeshifting chorus boy from ancient Greece who falls for a handsome widower — Brian Hutchinson, who last played gay in Looped — when god-sent to present-day Long Island. Helmed by out director Leigh Silverman, it was the sweetest, strangest gay love story of the season.

Playwrights Horizons, closed May 1.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Unnatural Acts
The Judy Show – My Life as a Sitcom
The Submission
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures