Casa Susanna information

Today, I received the following from another chat room. Please the articles, and comment if you want.

Casa Susanna was the inspiration for the Broadway Play Casa Valentina, by Harvey Fierstein. There was a book published in 2005 about Casa Susanna and follow up articles in newspapers.

Here's the link to Time Magazine article:
http://lightbox.time.com/2014/04/14/casa-susanna/#1

You can read a New York Times article from 2006 at the following link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/garden/07trann.html?_r=0
And finally:

The New York Times last Sunday reported the opening on Broadway of the play Casa Valentina, a fictional account about the crossdressers who visited the Catskills mini-resort Casa Susanna during the 1960s and 1970s. The play is written by Harvey Fierstein, the performer who has done a number of drag roles on Broadway. Reportedly, it is a sympathetic portrayal of crossdressers at that very closeted time.

To my knowledge this is the first significant portrayal of crossdressers, as against drag queens or transsexuals, in theater or film in the U.S. This is a major step forward, in my view. Interestingly, the play was written by a gay man, not a crossdresser himself. I hope somewhere there is an interview with Harvey Fierstein as to what motivated him to write this play.

The Times article recounts the struggle the actors had in working to play crossdressers. Some are quoted as developing a sympathetic view of our community.

The Times article is cited below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/theater/casa-valentina-fie...