nothing makes me angrier than the fact that the theater for Head Over Heels was only half full last night. we finally have a joyful musical about queer youth featuring a plus-sized princess falling in love with her black lady-in-waiting while belting the music of The Go-Gos and none of the marketing featured them!!! it’s a musical about lesbians and you’d never know it!
don’t hide representation in your marketing!! representation should not be a fun surprise if it means the audience you’re representing has no idea the show exists for them!
wait Head Over Heels is gay??? i’d heard about it being a new jukebox musical but i had no idea that there was any kind of queer representation in it!
Oh my goodness. Let me break down how gay this musical is for you:
Pamela, the older princess, has been turning away suitors for five years because none are “suitable” for her. She’s oblivious to the fact that she’s, uh, hella gay and in love with her very sexy lady-in-waiting, Mopsa, who is the only one in court who takes none of her shit. Here’s Pamela singing “Beautiful” because she knows she is perfect af:
Mopsa (center), meanwhile, is my wife in my heart:
The younger princess, Philoclea, is in love with a shepherd, Musidorus, who her father, the douchebag misogynist king, says is below her station. So Musidorus dresses up like a Amazon warrior princess to spend time with her. The only problem is that both the king and the queen fall in love with Musidorus’s disguise. Hijinks ensue. By the end of the play Musidorus adores the femininity he’s discovered within himself and seems to be genderqueer.
Oh, and also, the Oracle Pythio is canonically trans and goes by they/them pronouns. They’re played by Peppermint, the first trans actress to originate a role on Broadway, who most of us know from RuPaul’s Drag Race.
I think my soul left my body when Pamela, Mopsa, Philoclea and Musidorus in drag all sang “Our Lips Are Sealed” as a pump up jam about hiding their queer love from the world.
AlexTheGhost 