Often, however, musical theater writers have used drag characters and situations for something more substantial. 1. WHERE’S CHARLEY? 1948 brought Where’s Charley? to Broadway. Charley, featuring Frank Loesser’s first Broadway score, was adapted by George Abbott from Brandon Thomas’s 1892 farce Charley’s Aunt The type of play for which the term “warhorse” was invented, it involves forbidden romance, spinsters, lovestruck youth, and mistaken identity. And a man in drag. Legendary clown Ray Bolger played lovesick Charley Wykeham, who dresses as his own spinster aunt to gain access to his beloved Amy Spettigue (played by the lovely Allyn Ann McLerie). Madcap hilarity ensues. Bolger took the show’s hit, “Once in Love with Amy,” and turned the gentle stroll into an audience sing-along number which endeared him further to the crowds, helping to turn the charming show into a 792-performance hit. 2. A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM The plays of Plautus were the basis for this supreme farce, in which the drag doesn’t occur until late in the second act.
