When the writer Larry Mitchell showed his friend Ned Asta his latest manuscript in 1976, it didn’t take long for her to question Mitchell’s hopes for publishing it as a children’s book. The two had been living blissfully in a queer commune near Ithaca, N.Y., for some years, but outside reality was still something to consider. As Mitchell shopped it around (now with Asta’s whimsical illustrations), even his hopes of it being released by small gay presses were dashed.

A year later, Mitchell decided to self-publish “The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions”: part fairy tale, part radical manifesto, entirely unequaled.

This week Asta held back joyful tears after seeing how their book’s blend of playfulness and politics works as a music theater piece at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. (Mitchell died in 2012.)

A collaboration between the composer Philip Venables and the writer-director Ted Huffman, the operatic ensemble piece is having its North American premiere — the latest stop on the cult classic’s idiosyncratic journey to some kind of mainstream.

It’s one that had mostly stalled for decades, after the book went out of print. Though Mitchell eventually left the upstate commune, Lavender Hill, Asta remained, working (as she still does) at nearby Moosewood, one of the country’s oldest vegetarian restaurants.

ImageThe show is making its North American premiere at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesImageNearly 100 instruments are used to interpret the score, which includes baroque and romantic classical music, bossa nova, techno and folk.Credit...Rachel Papo for The New York Times

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