Imagine someone tells you they’re writing a play about the heir to the British throne being a homosexual, complete with nudity. You’d brace for cliché: the easy satire, the tired provocation, the self-aware wink that so often passes for queer transgression. Prince Faggot is none of that. It’s precise, intelligent, and one of the best pieces of queer theater I’ve seen in years.
Written by Jordan Tannahill and directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, the play takes a risk few others would dare. It imagines a near-future Britain where an adult prince comes of age and the question of queerness inside a monarchy becomes more than a tabloid whisper. The premise is speculative, not sensational.
Prince Faggot
The play spans a decade of the prince’s life. What emerges feels less like growth and more like recognition of privilege and of desire. His queerness isn’t the twist; it’s the frame. The tension lies in how he learns to carry it into adulthood, a knot many queer folks will recognize. It becomes a queer coming-of-age story that lands because it refuses the easy reveal.
The production opens with childhood photographs projected behind the cast. Each performer offers a brief reflection from their own life before the fiction begins, connecting the personal to the mythic. From there, the story follows a young royal navigating love, family, and expectation, the familiar arc of boy meets boy, brings him home, and then spends the next decade learning what it costs to live both honestly and on display.
The direction is smart enough to trust simplicity. The staging is bare: a few chairs, some flowers, a credenza, and the occasional prop that queer audiences will relate to. Nothing distracts from the writing or the performances. It feels authentic, not forced, when the fourth wall breaks.
The six-member cast is uniformly strong, with Rachel Crowl and John McRae standing out. Crowl plays the mother, bringing charm and gravitas to the role. McRae’s prince is radiant and restless, at once self-aware and lost in the performance of himself. The entire cast, including K. Todd Freeman, David Greenspan, Mihir Kumar, and N’yomi Allure Stewart, moves easily between confession and theater, giving the piece its heart.
Tannahill’s script has bite, but it also has empathy. The language shifts from tight, glittering irony to quiet confession without ever losing control. The irony lands hardest when the prince insists he’s being denied love by the system, only to face the truth that he’s the one unwilling to choose. If there’s a flaw , it’s that the story’s episodic structure can feel abrupt and rushed, especially in the final third where the years pass in brief, lyrical vignettes.
By the end, the play doesn’t tie a bow on its themes. It opens them wider. The lights fall not on resolution, but on continuation and the reality of compromise. It closes the way real life does, mid-conversation.
Now Playing
Prince Faggot
Written by Jordan Tannahill. Directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury. World premiere Off-Broadway co-production by Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep. Current engagement at Studio Seaview, 305 W 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036. Running through November 30, 2025. Approx. 2 hours, no intermission.
Cast: Rachel Crowl, K. Todd Freeman, David Greenspan, Mihir Kumar, John McRae, N’yomi Allure Stewart.
Tickets and info: studioseaview.com/show/prince-faggot
