This is a collection of seven contemporary American plays (six of them by gay playwrights) that depict the lives of gay men in the years before gay liberation and in our own time. The first three works demonstrate gay playwrights' impulse to share the history of oppression and liberation gay men have faced. The remaining four plays offer depictions of the ways in which gay men have and have not assimilated in the twenty-first century. As these seven plays dramatize a variety of personal and social issues, they also demonstrate a variety of dramatic styles, from realism to flamboyant gender-bending to musical theater. It represents the work of African-American, Latino and white playwrights.