The Queens of Welfare Island: Listen to the Trailer for the New Podcast

A new Making Gay History podcast series is taking listeners into a largely forgotten chapter of queer New York history with The Queens of Welfare Island, an eight-episode series exploring the real stories that inspired the upcoming musical The Gorgeous Nothings.

The series, hosted by Making Gay History founder Eric Marcus, will examine the history of the Fag Ward, a section of the Men’s Penitentiary on Welfare Island, now known as Roosevelt Island, where queer men were imprisoned in 1930s New York City. Drawing from archival records and historical accounts, the podcast will explore the lives of the men who were incarcerated there and the community they created under deeply oppressive circumstances.

Those stories also form the foundation of The Gorgeous Nothings, a new musical written and created by Travis Lee Russ. The production brings together the stories of six inmates with the spectacle of their annual Christmas pageant, known as the “Fag Follies,” while exploring the relationships and sense of community that developed among queer men at a time when homosexuality was criminalized.

Now, The Queens of Welfare Island is giving audiences a chance to learn about the real people and history behind the musical before it arrives onstage. The podcast will release episodes every two weeks beginning October 19, with each episode adding another piece to a history that has largely disappeared from the public record.

Russ says the partnership gives audiences “two complementary ways to encounter this forgotten chapter of queer history,” while Marcus describes the history as something he himself knew nothing about before the research behind the musical brought it to light.

The trailer gives us our first introduction to how The Queens of Welfare Island will approach these stories, combining historical research with the voices and experiences of the real people whose lives inspired The Gorgeous Nothings.

And there’s plenty more to come. The Gorgeous Nothings, directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford, will make its world premiere at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City on February 16, 2027, running through March 14. The podcast arrives several months earlier, giving us a chance to dig into the history before seeing how Russ and the creative team bring it to the stage.

For a story about queer people whose lives were never meant to become part of the historical record, The Queens of Welfare Island is offering them another way to be remembered. Listen to the trailer for The Queens of Welfare Island below, and get ready to listen when the series launches October 19.

---

The Queens of Welfare Island will be available wherever you listen to podcasts starting October 19. Purchase Tickets to The Gorgeous Nothings at the Perelman Performing Arts Center NYC here. Purchase Tickets to Live Podcast Launch on October 19 here. Visit makinggayhistory.org to explore the more than 150 episodes of the Making Gay History podcast. Follow us on X and Instagram for all queer stuff!

Featured Image: Image Courtesy of The Karpel Group. Photo by Jesse Dittmar (@jessedittmar).