Who enjoys The Crown, the dishy six-season British TV series dramatizing the affairs of the House of Windsor? Opening Tuesday, Prince Faggot delivers an episode of The Crown pushed ahead in time to the 2030s. In a new Off Broadway play, Jordan Tannahill spins a what-if story around Prince George, the UK heir to the throne. His fiction presents George as an 18 year-old gay art student at Oxford who shares a red-hot romance with Dev, a fine South Asian British man. Their relationship is soon plagued by intense media scrutiny and later by George’s commitment to royal duties.
Ginned up with a sensational title, the depiction of actual royals and a few explicitly staged sex encounters, Prince Faggot also operates on a meta-theatrical plane to consider queer existence within the elite halls of power and prestige. Few will appreciate whether the author achieves his ambitions, however, as the world premiere of this seriocomic drama is performed in a 126-seat theater on the top floor at Playwrights Horizons. Stylishly directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Soho Rep/Playwrights Horizons co-production is adeptly performed and smartly designed. To guard the actors’ privacy, patrons are instructed to stow their mobile devices into phone locking pouches.
The drama begins as its six-member ensemble of queer and trans artists perch on the edge of the stage. Talking to viewers directly, the play’s fictionalized actors speak of their childhood awareness of gender conflict. Images showing them as kids assuming campy poses appear. Then up pops a circa 2017 photo of Prince George at age four looking cute in a sissy attitude. They briefly debate the worth of their “queer speculation,” and then get on with the name-dropping fairy tale. At times, the actors will provide further comment, contrasting their experiences against George’s world.
It’s 2033. King Charles III remains on the throne. George (John McCrea) brings his boyfriend Dev (Mihir Kumar) for an Amner Hall weekend with his kindly, supportive parents William (K. Todd Freeman) and Catherine (Rachel Crowl) and sister Charlotte (N’yomi Allure Stewart). Then in zips Jacqueline (David Greenspan), their glib communications director, to prepare Dev for huge media attention and, well, let’s just turn on The Crown. In this particular episode, what binds George to Dev is a kink relating to his guilt over oppressive colonial history. The two-hour play turns patchy: There is a rueful confession in the rain. Ancestors arise in an acid vision. Greenspan quietly delivers a sensitive description of an extreme sexual practice. Bagpipes skirl. Stewart talks with pride about people making their own kind of royalty. Some observations are handsomely composed but do not always reflect the action of an increasingly soapy romance that concludes with an Elinor Glyn flourish involving a symbolic emblem.
An uneven drama, Prince Faggot proves scarcely as meaningful about present and future queer existence as its author intends, although it can be surprisingly entertaining in spots. The swift staging by Chowdhury and solid performances by his ensemble help to make it all seem convincing. Sharp costumes by Montana Levi Blanco, such as Jacqueline’s glam gold and white pants suit (a snap at the Windsor clan’s legendary “men in gray suits”), flexible yet elegant scenic design by David Zinn, effective sound design and music by Lee Kinney and Isabella Byrd’s glimmering lighting appropriately give the production a jewel box quality.
Prince Faggot opened June 16, 2025, at Playwrights Horizons and runs through July 6. Tickets and information: playwrightshorizons.org
