Directed by Jack O'Brien, the play starred Nathan Lane as Chauncey Miles, and featured Jonny Orsini, Cady Huffman, Andréa Burns, Jenni Barber, Lewis J. Stadlen, Geoffrey Allen Murphy, and Mylinda Hull.
At this time, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia is attempting to end burlesque in New York (during this period the gay population was often persecuted[citation needed]).
However, Chauncey, a passionate Republican supporter of La Guardia, believes that the attacks on burlesque and gays will stop after the election.
When another of the performers suddenly quits the Irving Place to work elsewhere, Chauncey brings Ned on as a last-minute replacement.
Ned and Chauncey's relationship becomes known and accepted by Ephraim and the theater's strippers, who become part of their regular circle of friends.
Before one performance, word reaches the troupe that the commissioner of licenses, Paul Moss, is in the audience with a number of policemen.
However, unable to think of other dialogue, Chauncey plays his trademark character, kisses Ephraim onstage, and the theater is raided.
Under the new restrictions on burlesque, Chauncey is limited to performing one "nance" sketch played in drag, which he finds demeaning.
Chauncey's relationship with Ned begins to suffer as he starts resorting to anonymous sexual encounters in parks.
It is revealed that Chauncey, as a repeat offender and banned from leaving New York, was offered leniency if he named the other party, (i.e., Ned), but refused to do so.
The New Yorker columnist, Hilton Als, called the play a "nearly perfect work of dramatic art, whose power derives from its equitable compassion and its unromantic view of myth".
[7] Ben Brantley, in The New York Times review, wrote: "...even Mr. Lane can’t reconcile all the disparities Mr. Beane’s script asks him to weave together.
By the show’s end, Chauncey has become both an eloquent hero in the fight against censorship and a crusty defender of the status quo, a figure of illuminating self-awareness and benighted denial.