Neil Patrick Harris has been getting big Tonys buzz for his starring role in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” now in Broadway previews — but the show began 20 years ago with more meager, edgy downtown roots at a weekly punk rock drag party at Don Hill’s.
David Binder, producer of the Broadway version, shepherded the show when it started at the Friday night gay party SqueezeBox, which regularly included performers Debbie Harry, Mistress Formika and DJ Miss Guy and drew regulars like Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Courtney Love, Drew Barrymore, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Calvin Klein.
Binder later produced the show, starring John Cameron Mitchell as a transgender East Berlin rocker, at his downtown apartment with a $29,000 budget before it moved off-Broadway in 1998.
Mitchell also starred in and directed a 2001 film version. Before its Broadway opening on April 22, the show’s audience included Olivia Wilde and Judith Light.
Binder’s also producing “Of Mice and Men” with James Franco a few blocks away.