BWW Q&A: Leviticus Jelks of MY WHITE HUSBAND at Moving Arts

We spoke to playwright Leviticus Jelks about the production of his play My White Husband at Moving Arts. 

Excitement soon turns to doubt — and modern reality blurs into retro fantasy — when young screenwriter, Omar, gets his pilot picked up by a Hollywood studio, only to find out that they want to cast a White actor in the role of his very real Black husband.

Playwright Leviticus Jelks originally conceived My White Husband as a part of our 2023 MADLab Cohort.

Playwright Leviticus Jelks was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He received a BA in English from Clayton State University, where he also studied theatre and playwriting. He went on to pursue further study of playwriting at The Horizon Theatre as a Playwriting Fellow and at The Alliance Theatre as a Literary Intern. Afterward, Leviticus was accepted into the MFA Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.

In his graduate years, the awards he received were the Sloan Screenwriting Award for The River Gods and the Lorraine Hansberry Award for A Is for Apron. His play, Day of Saturn, was accepted for a staged reading at the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles, and as a recipient of the Play LA Humanitas Award and was featured in The Road Theatre Summer Reading Festival. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Leviticus joined the Los Angeles Playwrights' Union as an official member. His most recent commissioned play, Calf, was developed and produced with Out of Hand Theatre of Atlanta and premiered in the summer of 2022.

What inspired you to write "My White Husband"?

One of my favorite shows is Sex Education, and my favorite character on there is Eric Effiong, portrayed by the amazing Ncutie Gatwa. I loved his performance and the way his character was written as this Black gay nerd who is both awkward and fierce. I loved virtually everything about Eric, but the only thing that bumped me was his romantic relationship with his closeted white bully, Adam. Yes, their relationship is complex and even touching at times, but it never sat well with me why this proudly Black and proudly queer individual developed feelings for his white tormentor. Then it got me thinking about past LGBTQIA+ films and shows that I have watched where the romantic pairing of Black and non-Black queer people were very frequent. I wanted to explore that and get to the deeper meaning behind it. While I fully support interracial relationships in reality, I often wondered why the image of openly Black queer characters in love without being associated with shame, death, or trauma seemed to be dismissed or completely ignored. I also have a love for classic television. I Love Lucy in particular, displayed the first interracial relationship to ever hit the airwaves. How could I blend the two worlds of classic TV and modern Black gay love to convey this thesis statement? That's where the idea of "My White Husband" came in.

How did your experiences growing up in Atlanta influence your storytelling?

Atlanta is a place with multiple personalities. It is a Black mecca and powerhouse, while it can also be a place to segregation and discrimination, even to this day. However, Atlanta will always be important to me, not just because it's my birthplace, but also because it was where I experienced my queerness for the first time. In each of my stories, no matter if they're dealing with otherworldly or fantastical elements, there is always a grounding in Blackness and Queerness because that is what shaped me as a young adult. There is also that pure unapologetic Black identity that is rampant, which is unlike any of the other places I have lived in my life. The complexity of Atlanta and its history is just saturated with stories that are meant to be told. I just want to be a part of that.

What was the most challenging part of your playwriting journey and how did you overcome it?

When COVID hit its initial height in 2020 and the world shut down, there were a lot of things in my life that I felt weren't important anymore. That included my playwriting. There were also the Black Lives Matter protests and the constant stories of police brutality, the images of broken Black bodies that were being shown by the media, and the increasing number of names and faces that were being killed. My mind was full and my heart was angry. The idea of playwriting didn't seem like it mattered anymore, and I felt that theatre was such an induglence that few people cared to take part in anymore. These feelings caused me to stop writing, and I didn't write anything for a year. My mind, which was usually swimming with new stories to tell felt like it had run out of anything to say. I had run out of stories and that was probably the most challenging time of my playwriting journey. I didn't think that I would overcome it, until I submitted an idea for the Moving Arts Theatre 9-month play development program, MADLabs. This totally supportive and collaborative space helped me regain my passion for storytelling. While not the original play that I pitched, My White Husband, came into my head a couple of months into the program. It was a fun and easy play for me to write and it also addressed issues that were close to my Black gay heart.

How does your play, "My White Husband", address the current issues of representation in Hollywood?

When it comes to representation of Black Queer love in the media, Hollywood has been predictably silent. This is why I decided to plant this story right in the middle of Los Angeles and make my main character, Omar, an up-and-coming screenwriter. He has written a show based on the relationship between him and his very Black husband. However, his intentions are overlooked in favor of casting a more "marketable" image white husband to display this more palatable interracial gay couple for a mainstream audience. Sadly, this is still a reality within our media, specifically those geared towards a queer audience. Whiteness is looked at as not only a more desirable addition but a necessary one in order to make a queer show successful. This is a lesson that Omar learns throughout the play, and even within his classic TV fantasy, where he does, in fact, have a white husband.

What's next for you after the premiere of "My White Husband"?

I am planning to write my first musical! There is this play that I've been thinking about, dealing with the troupe of the African Grove Theatre, the first prominent Black theatre in America. The Grove was formed on the edge of the Abolition of Slavery, which was not just a transformative time for Black people, but for America as a whole. The formation of a Black theatre, with an entirely Black troupe and helmed by a Black writer and director (William Alexander Brown) was entirely unheard of at the time and speaks to the changing ways Black people saw themselves. I want to write a musical about that hidden gem in Black history.

What can audiences expect from the world premiere of "My White Husband"?

"My White Husband" is a play full of laughs, magic, and whimsy. It's just fun! However, it all encompasses a very complex, but intimate, look into this marriage between two Black gay men who despite obstacles like white husbands, bad cooking, and different views on life, still find the thread of love between them.

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