Hedwig And The Angry Inch

On Valentine's day, 1998, Hedwig and the Angry Inch opened to rave reviews and the phenomenon that is Hedwig was born. This long-running off-Broadway smash, with its central metaphor inspired by Plato's Symposium, tells the story of "internationally ignored song stylist" Hedwig Schmidt, a "fourth wall-smashing, German rock & roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a gruesomely botched sex-change operation" (Time Out). This story, performed by Hedwig (ne Hansel) in the form of a rock gig, and backed by the hard-rocking band, "The Angry Inch," begins in the former East Berlin when Hansel meets Luther, an American GI who promises to take the young man back to the States on the condition that he change his sex and become Hedwig. She ends up alone in a trailer part in Kansas where she meets geeky Tommy Speck, whom she renames Tommy Gnosis. He goes on to rock star fame and fortune and Hedwig is again cast aside.