Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Trevor: The Musical’ on Disney+, An Off-Broadway LGBTQ+ Musical With A Message

The name Trevor is now synonymous with the anti-bullying LGBTQ+ movement, mostly stemming from the nonprofit The Trevor Project. But even before The Trevor Project was Trevor, an Oscar-winning short film that externalized a young boy’s internal gay leanings. Trevor: The Musical builds on that story and was an off-Broadway production last fall before getting the film treatment and landing on Disney+. With its release during Pride Month, it’s no doubt timely. But is it actually worth streaming?

TREVOR: THE MUSICAL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Trevor is a middle-schooler in 1981, obsessed with Diana Ross and dealing with his slow realization that he might be gay. He’s not exactly popular at school, though he has his nerdy best friends — one of whom is harboring an unrequited crush on Trevor. In gym class, Trevor is paired with ultra jock Pinky and is immediately smitten. Trevor convinces Pinky and his fellow football players to do a choreographed dance for the school’s annual rally instead of them donning pink tutus, but on the day of, they opt for the tutus instead of doing his dance and he’s crushed. It soon comes out that Trevor might be homosexual, and he’s shunned and bullied at school, leading him to an extreme breaking point.

What Will It Remind You Of?: The show is tonally similar to Dear Evan Hansen in its adolescent angst, though the original songs in Trevor are not quite as captivating.

Performance Worth Watching: Yasmeen Sulieman, who plays Diana Ross in Trevor’s fever dreams, doesn’t get much to do aside from look amazing in sequined jumpsuits, but her voice is killer. Aaron Alcaraz as the Candy Striper Jack is also a standout for his emotionally heartfelt but playful moment that helps Trevor have hope again.

Memorable Dialogue: Trevor is capital O obsessed with Diana Ross and has a funny moment early on about her origin story: “Diana Ross was found by a talent scout!”

Sex and Skin: No sex or skin, but some allusions to sexy magazines.

Our Take: While the central conceit of Trevor: The Musical is a worthy one, it’s a bit of a slog to sit through. This is mostly due to the musical’s songbook, which unfortunately can’t compare to the Diana Ross songs sprinkled throughout the film. It’s a big undertaking to mix new tunes with Ross’s legendary songs and the results are mostly unmemorable numbers.

Set in 1981, the musical deliberately enables its characters to be more naive and cruel at the same time. Trevor’s parents are stereotypically ignorant about their son’s obsession with Diana Ross and instead choose to focus on the Reagan assassination attempt; kids at school run with a rumor about Trevor’s sexuality but are almost too nervous to even utter the word; the jocks at school are afraid that doing a dance will make them look homosexual but somehow wearing pink tutus as a gag doesn’t (?). The root of these problems — conservative parents or cruel children — haven’t gone away, and the musical would have been better had it updated to a contemporary setting.

The performances are charming, though it occasionally feels like you’re watching the local theater’s rendition of a special topic show. This is partly due to the tone of the show, which feels all-around cheerful even when dealing with sadder subject matter making it feel tonally inconsistent. It’s also partly due to some of the choreography not landing as cleanly across the board.

The brightest part of the musical comes near the end after (spoiler alert!) Trevor ends up in the hospital after a suicide attempt. The candy striper who attends to him is assumed to be an older gay man who is meant to show Trevor that it gets better and there’s hope at the end of the tunnel. They sing a duet about their dreams for the future and what could have been saccharine ends up being a very heartfelt moment in the musical exactly when it needed it.

Still, Trevor’s journey to self acceptance is obviously an internal one, and I wish that the show had included more internal dialogue via soliloquies and solo songs to understand the turmoil he was enduring. It’s mostly conveyed through his Diana Ross dreams, but unfortunately that doesn’t do enough to get us firmly inside of his struggle.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Though the subject matter is topical and important, there is better LGBTQ+ content to spend time with.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.