New Book GREASEPAINT PURITAN: BOSTON TO 42ND STREET IN THE QUEER BACKSTAGE NOVELS OF BRADFORD ROPES Out Now

Greasepaint Puritan: Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes by Maya Cantu (University of Michigan Press, 2024) brings new attention to Bradford Ropes, the oft-forgotten author of 42nd Street. Inspired by Ropes's own experiences as a performer, each of Ropes's novels was inspired by his own experiences as a performer, and focused on the lives of gay men in show business, offering rare glimpses into backstage Broadway.

Descended from Mayflower Pilgrims, Ropes rebelled against the "Proper Bostonian" life, in a career that touched upon the Jazz Age, American vaudeville, and theater censorship. We follow Ropes's successful career as both a performer and the author of the trilogy of backstage novels: 42nd Street, Stage Mother, and Go Into Your Dance. Populated by scheming stage mothers, precocious stage children, grandiose bit players, and tart-tongued chorines, these novels centered on the lives and relationships of gay men on Broadway during the Jazz Age and Prohibition era. Rigorously researched, Greasepaint Puritan chronicles Ropes's career as a successful screenwriter in 1930s and '40s Hollywood, where he continued to be a part of a dynamic gay subculture within the movie industry before returning to obscurity in the 1950s. His legacy lives on in the Hollywood and Broadway incarnations of 42nd Street-but Greasepaint Puritan restores the "forgotten melody" of the man who first envisioned its colorful characters.

Purchase the book here.

About the Author

Maya Cantu is a dramaturg, interdisciplinary scholar, and historian who teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College. She is also the author of American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from "Irene" to "Gypsy".