In between BLM protests and existential quarantine queries, writer/creator Larry Powell adapted his play The Gaze...No Homo (2020/2021 Eugene O'Neill NPC finalist) into a new media series. The Fountain Theatre's new digital platform, Fountain Stream, has partnered with Powell and Angelica Robinson of Tell Me a Story Productions to present this bold, funny episodic tragicomedy for our times, a 12-part, multi-platform online experience unlike anything audiences have seen before. The first three short-form episodes of The Gaze... No Homo will begin streaming on Friday, Nov. 20, with episodes four, five and six going online Friday, Nov. 27; episodes seven, eight and nine on Friday, Dec. 4; and the final three episodes becoming available on Friday, Dec. 11. Tickets are free at fountaintheatre.com/now-upcoming/the-gaze.
No Homo is the first in Powell's The Gaze cycle of plays that examines the process of building culturally specific and queer works of color in certain historically white spaces. The story of an openly Black queer artist as he navigates the rehearsal process at a very white American theater festival, The Gaze tackles hard topics head on. It wrestles with the question, "Why strain to be free under a gaze fixed on your imprisonment, when it's you who is holding the key?".
In episode one, we meet protagonist Jerome Price, played by
Galen J. Williams (national touring and Broadway productions of Motown the Musical) as he arrives at the prestigious Evergreen Theatre Festival ("where the brightest and boldest new American voices are watered with wisdom, fed with fodder and nurtured with nourishment"). Evergreen interim artistic director Miranda Cryer (
Sharon Lawrence of NYPD Blue, Dynasty, Shameless, The Ranch and much more) has always been an outspoken champion of diverse voices - including that of emerging, Black queer playwright Shaun Korey, played by
Devere Rogers (My Spy and IFC's Sherman's Showcase). Relegated to Zoom by the pandemic, Cryer is directing the world premiere of Korey's newest work, No Homo, but "artistic differences" between her and festival newbie Price threaten to blow up the process. Eugene Byrd (Dr. Clark Edison in Bones) and TC Carson (Living Single) star as Price's fellow actors Kendrell Thompson and Buddy DuPois, each of whom has learned to navigate the hidden dangers and microaggressions of the entertainment business in his own way - as has long-time stage manager Sherry Grosse (
Yvette Cason, original Broadway cast and feature film version of Dreamgirls) and gender-fluid ASM Tee (internet personality, actor and model Jason "Freckle" Greene).
Powell states, "In order to properly experience my own exodus of the decentralization of the white gaze in my creative work and reclaim my black ass imagination I had to stare the poison in the face and, through the telling of Jerome's story, turn it into the medicine decolonization so fiercely provides. That I was able to make this piece in the summer of 2020 and share this piece that same summer and beyond is a divine triumph. A blessing standing on sacred ground and under one gaze only: the ancestral one. Thankful to any and all who make it possible for others to catch the vision."
The creative team behind The Gaze... No Homo includes episode directors
Joanna Strapp (episode 1),
Larry Powell (episodes 2, 11 and 12),
Zhailon Levingston (episode 3),
Satya Bhabha (episode 4), Reginald L. Douglas (episode 5), Amber A Harris (episode 6), Jonathan McCrory (episode 7) and
Bianca LaVerne Jones (episodes 8 and 9); as well as editor Joey Scoma, composer Robert Revell, branding and graphic design artist Samia Zaidi, website designer Nick Ducassi, and co-producer Haley Rawson. The series is produced by producer/executive producers Angelica Robinson,
Spencer Williams and Matt Lubetich, along with executive producers
Larry Powell,
Zhailon Levingston and
Devere Rogers and executive producer/director of photography
John MacDonald.
Larry Powell is a writer, actor, director and producer born and raised in South Central L.A. As an actor, he's originated and premiered roles in some of the most exciting new plays in America including The Christians by
Lucas Hnath, The Legend of Georgia McBride by
Matthew Lopez, Father Comes Home From The Wars by Suzan Lori Parks (opposite
Sterling K. Brown), Brokeology by
Nathan Louis Jackson, and he played the title role in While I Yet Live by
Billy Porter. He is a two-time Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award-winner, and has been nominated for numerous Ovation, NAACP and San Francisco Bay Area theater awards as well as for Audelco and Audie awards. Larry is also a published playwright and professional screenwriter, with three plays scheduled to receive world premieres over the next two years. He is a core playwright at the Lark Play Development Center. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama, Larry is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Southern California's School of Dramatic Arts MFA Acting program. He is the founder and creative director of the Powell Academy of the Performing Arts, an arts organization providing high-performance training and resources to historically marginalized artists on the rise in the mainstream entertainment industry.
To watch The Gaze... No Homo, go to
fountaintheatre.com/now-upcoming/the-gaze beginning Friday, Nov. 20.
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