Kramer, Larry (1935-2020), was an American playwright and an advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights. Kramer is best known for his powerful drama The Normal Heart (1985). The partly autobiographical play takes place in New York City from 1981 to 1984, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic that killed thousands of gay men in America during the late 1900’s.
In The Normal Heart, Kramer angrily attacked all sides of the AIDS health crisis, including the government, the media, and medical organizations. He bitterly criticized them for either ignoring the spread of AIDS, which he called the “plague,” or responding with indifference. Kramer also ridiculed the gay community for its role in the epidemic by refusing to take precautions that would have limited the spread of the sexually transmitted disease. Kramer wrote the play The Destiny of Me (1993), a sequel to The Normal Heart.
As an activist, Kramer co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1981 to provide services and support for AIDS victims. In 1987, he also founded the group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), which led demonstrations and other public protests to raise national awareness of the AIDS danger.
Kramer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 25, 1935. He earned a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1957. He then entered the motion-picture industry, variously serving as a screenwriter, story editor, and producer. Kramer received a 1970 Academy Award nomination for his screenplay for the motion picture Women in Love (1969).
Kramer first gained literary attention for his 1978 novel Faggots, a portrait of the male gay community on New York City’s Fire Island. He also wrote a long historical fantasy about American history from a gay viewpoint, The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart (2015). Many of Kramer’s essays and newspaper columns on the AIDS crisis were collected in Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist (1989, revised and expanded 1994). Kramer died on May 27, 2020.
