In August 2017, a media firestorm erupted over an utterly adorable photo of young Prince George, son of William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales. It portrays the enthralled tyke striking a decidedly effete pose while gazing at a helicopter. Many commenters rapturously branded the future monarch a “gay icon,” while others were horrified. The lad was four years old at the time.
Which got playwright-novelist-filmmaker Jordan Tannahill thinking. How would the royal family, and by extension the world, react if Prince George were indeed gay? And why should homosexuality matter? How young is it acceptable for individuals to identify their queerness? How faggy is “too faggy?”
These musings — and so much more — are explored with brash theatricality in Tannahill’s latest work, “Prince Faggot,” a scathing satire on power, privilege, and the politics of queer identity.
The tragicomic piece, directed with flair by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, presents two interwoven tracks. The first is an ensemble of queer and trans performers who ostensibly portray themselves, delivering monologues about their childhood memories while speculating on the vagaries of Prince George’s imagined sexual orientation.
At the top of the show, dressed in street clothes, actors Mihir Kumar, K. Todd Freeman, Rachel Crowl, N’yomi Allure Stewart, David Greenspan, and John McCrea take turns recounting their respective queer awakenings. We even see projected photos from their real-life childhoods.
“Things have gotten so hot in this country,” laments Freeman. “You start talking about queer childhood, they’re gonna brand you a groomer…We’ve got Neo-Nazis with semi-automatic rifles shutting down drag queen story hours out there.”
The second track is a fairy tale of sorts (pun intended), which finds 17-year-old Prince George (McCrea) in a down-low romance with a fellow Oxford student, the handsome British Indian journalist named Dev (Kumar). When their relationship is about to be exposed by the media, William (Freeman) and Kate (Crowl) summon the bossy royal communications director, Jaqueline (Greenspan), to control the narrative. Nonetheless, the Internet proves merciless against the “exotic commoner.”
For the balance of the two-hour, intermissionless play, “Prince Faggot” traces the ups and downs (and, er, ins and outs) of their relationship over the next several years. The gallery openings, posh galas, and play premieres. The lack of privacy and death threats. The palace’s stranglehold on their calendars. The drug-fueled dancefloors and sexcapades.
Be forewarned there are frank, spine-tingling sex scenes, among the most artfully potent as I’ve witnessed onstage in a legitimate theater. Which explains the requirement that phones be secured in Yondr pouches. There’s spicy talk of leather, BDSM, and fisting. When George gets sick after inhaling poppers, Dev jokingly calls him a “chaotic bottom.” Tannahill’s background as a fetish sex worker is in full evidence here.
The production design is superb. The set, by David Zinn (“The Last Five Years”), explodes the usual confines of a rectangular stage, placing some of the action visibly in the wings. Isabella Byrd’s moody lighting intensifies the proceedings further. The world premiere is co-produced by Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep, in association with Jeremy O. Harris and Josh Godfrey of bb2.
All performances are first-rate, with special kudos to McCrea, who strips naked and leaves it all on the stage during a climactic scene. Also to Greenspan, whose tour de force as the oily PR maven is so delectably hilarious, his character deserves her own full-length play.
The portrayals of the ensemble members as themselves felt so authentic, I assumed their stories were autobiographical. A program note reveals, however, that their anecdotes are largely fictional, written by Tannahill, with the exception of the final monologue by Stewart.
Seeing such iconic figures as the British royal family played by LGBTQ+ actors of various racial/ethnic backgrounds was refreshing. Director Chowdhury has stated that the experimental structure of “Prince Faggot” allows these often-marginalized actors to play roles not traditionally available to them. They took a risk and it paid off immensely.
“Prince Faggot” | Co-produced by Playwrights and Soho Rep | Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Playwrights Horizons | 416 W. 42nd St. | $49 – $100 | Through July 13, 2025 | Two hrs., no intermission
