John Cameron Mitchell wanted to craft something out of the rage of the AIDS epidemic.
His response was the 1998 musical, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” produced with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask.
The story follows Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer East German singer in a fictional rock ‘n’ roll band heavily inspired by the androgynous ’70s glam rock style of David Bowie, the early punk rock spirit of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop and other notable rock acolytes such as John Lennon.
Along with the electrifying music featured in the work, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” explores queer identity, centering a character who is forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery, which is botched and leaves her with a remnant she calls an “angry inch.”
While the work was well received Off-Broadway, where it debuted in the late ’90s and won the Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, it didn’t get its first Broadway production until 2014.
When it finally hit Broadway, the production won several Tony Awards. Neil Patrick Harris took home Best Leading Actor in a Musical, and Lena Hall won Best Featured Actress in a Musical. It also won Best Revival of a Musical and was nominated for Best Costume Design for a Musical, thanks to Arianne Phillips, who also did the costumes for the original 2001 film.
“Queerness in general has always been part of theater, but Broadway is like our Hollywood,” Mitchell said in a phone interview. “There’s always been a bit of ‘Oh God, will that play?’ But with Hedwig, it felt like we were coming out of a heritage into a place that wasn’t always used to it, which was Off-Broadway, which always tries to get on Broadway. At the time, we thought it could never be on Broadway. So we were just thrilled that those who came loved it, and many of our heroes such as Bowie, Reed, Patti LuPone, and Glenn Close were coming. It was unbelievable.”
The musical film is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a tour dubbed Hedwig 25, which will stop at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on Sept. 17 and 18, and feature 4K screenings of the cult classic, followed by live conversations, audience Q&As, intimate acoustic performances and more.
Ahead of the tour, Mitchell reflected on “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” its musical influences, how cultural perceptions have changed since and more. The following interview was edited for space and clarity.
Q: Even though it was the ’90s, there was still some cultural hesitation around the LGBTQ community in mainstream art. How did you deal with that in the early days, and when did you start noticing a shift?
Mitchell: Hedwig was not sanded off. It was like warts and all, here I am, full-on downtown drag queen, irreverence and punk rock at times. Those things were not usually on Broadway. I would say over the next 15 years after that, I saw things shift. The first show I saw on Broadway that made me go, “Oh, maybe Hedwig could be here too,” was “American Idiot.” It took the music of a multi-million dollar punk rock band to get there, and Hedwig certainly was not that, but it had built up steam over the years with a very strong cult audience.
Q: What did it feel like when Hedwig made it to Broadway?
Mitchell: When we finally made it to Broadway with Michael Mayer’s wonderful production and Harris’ wonderful performance, people were like, “Oh, it’s not as scary as I thought. My husband lives in the area. Let’s get more tickets.” It became as cuddly as I think it is. Hedwig is just as much of a monster as Mama Rose. It’s just that the music is different. The gender stuff is more modern to the way we think about it. It doesn’t fit into any trans coming-of-age stories. It’s still very specific about a forced operation.
Q: That story was written in the ’90s, and today that maybe doesn’t fit into the way LGBTQ communities speak or think about gender. Has there been any modern backlash for Hedwig?
Mitchell: Hedwig was actually canceled at the height of cancellation in Australia by some young people online saying this is a trans role that should be played by a trans actor because at the time, there was the cis gay man, though I think he’s nonbinary now, who was cast to play the role. In effect, those young nonbinary trans actors helped cancel the production and led the actor to try to kill himself. It was infuriating.
Q: How do you think works like “Hedwig” can help bridge the gap between broader audiences?
Mitchell: Hedwig is about forcing people into the binary, which is traumatic, but then recovering from that mutilation by self-invention. At the end, the drag is dropped because it’s just armor after all, and then this naked creature, a gender of one, walks bravely into the world and says, “Take me as I am or just walk away. I don’t care. I am not fitting into your identity groups because I have had too hard a life for me to be listening to people who haven’t experienced it.” That story of survival, of self-invention, of recovery from trauma, resonates with all kinds of people, especially outsiders and anyone who’s had to be judged by how they look or had to hide who they are.
Q: There is an element of rock, glam and punk in your work. Where does that influence come from specifically in “Hedwig”?
Mitchell: There’s punk attitude and then this punk rock. A punk attitude can be someone making hip-hop or a community garden. It means making anything creatively outside the systems that you’re taught to use. It’s creation outside of capitalism, outside of what you’re supposed to do, outside of things that can be co-opted. “Hedwig” is that story. We all know what punk is; it’s not hard to define. It’s sort of queer, but they both have community. We are in community, and the “Hedwig” community is worldwide. I meet a few people in pretty much every town who were affected by “Hedwig,” and that’s a miracle. That is a beautiful thing.
Q: You’ve also been open about sex in your work. How do you feel that topic has changed over the years in American society?
Mitchell: Oh, it’s definitely gotten worse for sex, as you can tell when you know Gen Z is not having it and judging us older people for having it. God knows one of the reasons people aren’t having sex is because there’s too much porn online. Boys are watching five years of porn before they have sex. That has an impact. Ask any straight girl, and she’ll tell you how she’s being choked on the first date. Of course, it all comes from digital culture and the way guys have sex on there.
Q: I take it that you don’t think the digital age has delivered?
Mitchell: There’s potential in moving away from all that stuff to create a new kind of punk outside those systems. Of course, the distribution is the question, but the talent and the desire are there. There’s a lot of gentry people who are done with cancel culture, pop music and electronics. They want a guitar, to be in the room with people, or even the CD. They want to touch their music, and that is a very healthy thing. Fascism breeds punk. That’s been one of the more exciting and positive things that has come out of this time period.
Q: You’ve spent some time airing your frustrations with the youth, so let’s get a chance here where you can speak on some of its positivity. Are there any younger contemporary musicians that you’d want to collaborate with?
Mitchell: To me, there’s lots of creativity going on in the music industry right now. I’m mesmerized by the new Rosalía. She’s doing the thing that moves into kind of a classical place, but it works from all angles. I kind of want to rough her up and get her a little more punk, maybe. For pure punk energy, Amyl and the Sniffers would be good to work with too. There’s this amazing woman who goes by the Wyld Chyld. She’s a big black woman fronting an amazing Philly and East Coast punk band. There’s a British band called Thwack! That’s fronted by a trans woman named Charlie Wood, who was in my film “How to Talk to Girls at Parties,” and I love what they’re doing.
Hedwig 25th Anniversary Movie Tour
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 17 and 18.
Where: Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 West 8th St., Los Angeles.
Tickets: Starting at $83.50 via Ticketmaster.com.