I wanted to read this collection after seeing the recent revival to see how the original trilogy compared, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

This trio of plays is devastatingly beautiful, rich, honest, emotive, and soulful. Fierstein has written a set of works that all good theatre should aspire to be like.

" You want to be a part of my life, I'm not editing out the parts you don't like."
a New York City drag queen, through various stages in his life throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Brillant, one of my favorite book !

I'd be interested to read the edited down version of Torch Song as Torch Song Trilogy (a four-hour ordeal) is just too long.

The final piece of the trilogy (Children First!) is the best of the trilogy and the jokes land as the pace moves briskly with love and honesty.

I read this script after watching the movie -- they're similar, but reading it actually makes me impressed how well it was adapted from the stage into film. I only wish I could have seen Harvey Fierstein in it on stage. It's a phenomenal work. Some stuff I've read about it has suggested that it's too conservative/assimilationist. Maybe I'm just defensive, but I don't think that's quite the case.

So many years later of its original publishing, still such a precious gem.

I recently watched the film with someone who'd never seen it. So I thought I'd re-read the play. An all time favorite in both mediums. MA!

I feel like "heartbreakingly human" is my new go to way to describe things I like, but that's exactly what this is. Based on Fierstein's public persona I expected it to be high camp, but it's actually really emotional drama. The second part is a little hard to follow on the page (but I'm sure would be interesting on stage) which is the only thing that kept this from 5 stars.

A lovely play/trilogy of plays that is 100% Fierstein but completely universal. Funny, tragic, and wise.

Wow this was amazing. Cant even imagine how this must have been to see. Like it’s already a great play and then Estelle Getty shows up in that role?

Of all the plays I’ve read in my life, this has to be my favorite so far (excluding of course any and all Elyse Pitock creations). I loved the movie when I was a kid, but the actual Torch Song Trilogy feels like a far more honest depiction of gay (and straight! And bisexual!) life in the the late 1970s.

The play is, obviously, a bit dated. There is a very biphobic undercurrent to the play that Harvey Fierstein almost ALMOST addresses. I think it must have been a progressive view of bisexuality and the closet at the time, but it 2018 it feels...inaccurate and more than a little mean. So. Warnings there.

The third act is the best. Reading everything Arnold says to his mother is cathartic, and the end of the play is so much more touching and open than the movie. I’d be interested to see this performed as written, the staging seems very unique and stripped down. I almost worry that any modern production would focus more on realism and less on the truth that Fierstein conveys with his sets and stage directions.

This was equal parts heartwarming and breaking. Fantastic, witty dialogue and three stores that unfold to tell the story of a gay man trying to exist as more than a gay man. I would love to se this live.