Looking at gay classic from inside out

More than a year before the so-called Stonewall riots ushered gay liberation into the American political consciousness in 1969, Mart Crowley's "The Boys in the Band" made gayness a part of the mainstream culture, running Off-Broadway for 1,001 performances before being adapted into a movie directed by William Friedkin ("French Connection").

All that history is part of Crayton Robey's documentary "Making the Boys," which retells the story behind the play and movie, gay culture and what life used to be like.

Robey and Crowley will accompany "Making the Boys" to Huntington's Cinema Arts Centre Wednesday as part of its "Out at the Movies' series, presented with the Long Island Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

"I was moving out of Los Angeles," Crowley said, recalling his relocation to New York four years ago, "and I had contacted UCLA about taking all my files on 'Boys in the Band'; I hesitate to call it an archive. But someone came and looked and said, 'Oh, yes, we want this,' so I called Crayton up and said, 'You better get here quick.' "

Crowley and Robey had met several years earlier, when Robey made "When Ocean Meets Sky," his history of the gay community on Fire Island, where Crowley had a house in the late '60s and early '70s. "I was so grateful I could do that," Robey said of rifling through Crowley's collection of papers and photos, "because Mart had such marvelous material."

Among the collection: a home movie of a Sunday beach party at the Malibu rental of Roddy McDowall, attended by Natalie Wood, Rock Hudson and others. It's in the documentary.

So are lots of other people, including the surviving original cast members of "Boys"; Crowley; fellow playwrights Tony Kushner, Terrence McNally and Edward Albee (who hated "Boys" then and still does), and many witnesses to the clandestine life of homosexuals pre-"Boys."

"Younger people have no idea what happened," Robey said. "And some of them don't care what happened. They just assume it's always been the way it is today, and I guess I had a sense of responsibility to connect the older generation with the younger generation."

WHAT "Making the Boys," with Mart Crowley and Crayton Robey

WHEN | WHERE Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington

ADMISSION Members $9, nonmembers $13, includes reception

INFO 631-423-3456; cinemaartscentre.org