Interview: Sam LaFrage Brings Camp, Chaos & Queer Defiance to SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN

For years, Sam LaFrage has built a reputation for creating theater that gleefully refuses to behave. Provocative, messy, funny, weird, queer, and often impossible to categorize, his work has cultivated the kind of devoted audiences who crave theatrical experiences that feel alive, dangerous, and just a little unhinged. So, perhaps, it makes perfect sense that LaFrage would find himself helping shape SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN, Mickey Gooch Jr.’s new Off-Broadway comedy about a gay couple whose relationship drama spirals into chaos during a gorilla trekking trip to Uganda.

And if that premise sounds delightfully absurd, LaFrage is more than happy to lean into exactly that. “It’s like a gay South Park episode meets Pippin,” LaFrage says with a laugh. The show pulls on his Commedia experiences, as well. “We’re all players,” he explains. “We’re all putting on random hats and being different people. In a way, it gives us so much freedom to tell the story in a fun, light way and to crack the audience open through laughter so we can let the light in at the end and show them a little bit of the message.”

That balance between outrageous camp and emotional truth has been and remains central to LaFrage’s approach. While SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN originated from Gooch’s concept and script, LaFrage has helped shape the production’s evolving theatrical language, contributing to script development, music, and the show’s overall tone. Rather than treating the material like a conventional musical, he approached it through the lens of devised theater, clowning, camp, and queer theatrical tradition.

“It sort of feels like a love letter to the shows I used to do downtown,” he says. “I’ve leaned into all of my Commedia tricks, all those Commedia jokes, the sounds that fly in and out, the gags. I’m bringing all of that, but this time for adults.” That sensibility, for LaFrage, feels deeply personal. “I had an acting teacher in school who told me, ‘Sam, use yourself as a gift in your work,’” he recalls. “I think it’s just my passion to use all of my experiences.”

“I think I was put on this earth to make people laugh,” he continues. “It’s just who I am, provocative and gay.”

Still, beneath the absurdity lies something with sharper emotional edges. Set against the very real reality of anti-LGBTQ+ persecution in Uganda, SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN places broad comedy beside authentic fear, something LaFrage says was essential to making the show resonate. “The stakes are really high,” he points out. “What’s really great is when you’re in high stakes and we have music, we have jokes, and it moves fast, that’s really good storytelling and good theater.”

For LaFrage, the show ultimately becomes an act of queer resistance. “The message of the show, if there is a message of the show, is that you’re never ever gonna end gay,” he posits. “You can try. You can lock us up, you can silence us, you can do all of your crazy tactics, but you’re never f___ing gonna end it. Period.”

That spirit seems to animate every inch of the production. “So much of this play is in-your-face gayety,” LaFrage says. “It’s our references. It’s everything.” He adds, “I just want an explosion of everything we are on that stage.”

That expansive vision extends to representation within the production itself. LaFrage emphasized that collaboration has been central to the rehearsal room, particularly when navigating potentially sensitive cultural material. “I just have an open collaborative room, period,” he says of his directing craft. “We talk about every joke, we talk about every accent, we talk about every moment.”

“Every voice is certainly heard,” he says. “Our goal here is to make people laugh, but we want to do it in the right way.”

Music, too, became a crucial storytelling tool. Though not a traditional full-scale musical, SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN uses songs, recurring motifs, and playful genre shifts to heighten both its comedy and emotional payoff. “There’s nothing like an underscoring at the end of the play,” LaFrage mentions. “That is the beauty of musical theater.”

He describes the show’s sonic world as delightfully eclectic. “We play with different styles and sounds throughout the whole show,” he says. “It warms our hearts.”

If all of this sounds unapologetically strange, LaFrage considers that a feature, not a flaw. “The world needs dumb and we need to laugh,” he states. “We have begun to take ourselves too f___ing seriously. What happened to art? Let it be messy. Not everything needs to look like West Elm. Let’s be messy.”

That philosophy feels particularly at home Off-Broadway, where some of the most exciting queer experimentation has historically flourished. “Off-Broadway is the home for this stuff,” LaFrage reveals. “I think Off-Broadway is having, in many ways, a renaissance while Broadway is doing the opposite.” He emphasizes, “I don’t feel like I have to censor myself. I can say the things that I want to say thoughtfully and responsibly. But I want to have as much fun and be as wild as I can, and this is the spot to do it.”

And while SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN may include drag, gorillas, queer relationship chaos, and more than a few outrageous references, LaFrage insists the emotional core remains simple. “We are nature,” he says of the entire LGBTQIA+ community. “We are big, we are powerful, and we’re f___ing here.”

Messy? Absolutely. Camp? Without question. But in LaFrage’s hands, SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN sounds exactly like the kind of gloriously weird queer theatrical event Off-Broadway was built for.

SILVERBACK MOUNTAIN runs May 31 – June 21, 2026 at AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street, New York). Tickets and additional information are available at www.SilverBackMountainPlay.com

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