These days, there is no shortage of gay characters on television or stage, and the increasingly easy familiarity of theatre audiences with gay culture makes it easy to forget just how far we’ve come in a relatively short time. Are we really only 20 years removed from La Cage Aux Folles, with its stereotypical drag queens and (at the time) shocking revelations of gay life? Dominic Papatola says that, at a time when much of America seems to be swinging hard to the right on social issues, the evolution of the arts paint a much different picture of the future.