George Birimisa was an American playwright, actor, and director who contributed to the explosion of gay theater in the mid-1960s during the early years of Off-Off-Broadway. His works feature sexually explicit, emotionally charged depictions of working-class homosexual men, often closeted, in the years before the Stonewall riots triggered a national and international gay rights movement. Contemporary Authors stated that "Birmisa's plays feature themes of human isolation, frustrated idealism, and rage against needless suffering, usually centered around homosexual characters.“ According to critic and playwright Michael Smith, Birimisa's writing “links the pain of human isolation to economic and social roots.†Birimisa remained an active playwright, author, editor, and teacher until the end of his life.
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