Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Off-Broadway promotional poster
MusicStephen Trask
LyricsStephen Trask
BookJohn Cameron Mitchell
Productions1998 Off-Broadway
2000 West End
2004 West End revival
2005 UK tour
2014 Broadway
2016 US tour
AwardsObie Award
Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical
Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and a book by John Cameron Mitchell. The musical follows Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer East German singer of a fictional rock and roll band. The story draws on Mitchell's life as the child of a U.S. Army major general who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was Mitchell's family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her trailer park home in Junction City, Kansas. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock style of David Bowie (who co-produced the Los Angeles production of the show), as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk performers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

The musical opened off-Broadway in 1998, and won the Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical. The production ran for two years, and was remounted with various casts by the original creative team in other US cities.[1] In 2000, the musical had a West End production, and it has been produced throughout the world in hundreds of stage productions.

In 2014, the show saw its first Broadway incarnation, opening that April at the Belasco Theatre and winning the year's Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. The production closed on September 13, 2015. A national tour of the show began at San Francisco's Golden Gate Theatre in October 2016 before closing at the Kennedy Center in July 2017.[2]

  1. ^ Holt, Jessica (1999-11-10). "'Wiggin-out', Daily Bruin Online". Archived from the original on 2013-10-23. Retrieved 2012-11-10.
  2. ^ "HEDWIG National Tour Kicks Off in Darren Criss's Hometown This Sunday". BroadwayWorld. September 30, 2016. Archived from the original on October 2, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2016.