Photos: Bill Russell Hosts Signing For Memoir 'Still, Bill: Gay Adventures From Cowboyland To Broadway'

Still, Bill: Gay Adventures From Cowboyland to Broadway is a new memoir from two-time Tony Award-nominee, Bill Russell. The book was officially released Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Learn more here. Russell celebrated the release of his new memoir at a special book signing and interview event, hosted by Sirius XM Radio's Seth Rudetsky, at the Drama Book Shop on Thursday, October 29 at 7:30PM. BroadwayWorld was there and you can check out photos below!

How does an effeminate boy–raised in Cowboyland with cattle and guns, hunting and trucks, sports and church, jocks and jerks, cruelty and small-mindedness–get from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the thrills and heartbreak of the white-hot lights of Broadway and the West End? The answer can be found in this memoir by the author of Side Show, elegies for angels, punks and raging queens, and Pageant, among other musicals. This frequently amusing, sometimes wild, often moving ride proceeds from creating grade school productions of fairy tales to writing the books and lyrics for internationally produced musicals and collaborating with the super-smart, uber-talented, and sometimes famous. Along the way, the author provides a ringside seat for viewing the huge cultural changes from the 1950s to the 2020s: hippies and flower power, women's and gay liberation, civil rights and wrongs, AIDS and covid, and the softening of hardened attitudes offset by alarming pushbacks against justice and democracy.

“Where I started is a long way from where I am now – both physically and especially psychologically,” says Russell. “Though my home town was Spearfish, South Dakota, I spent a fair amount of time at my paternal grandparents' cattle ranch just over the border in Wyoming. Everyone knew my dad as “Cowboy Russell” and he lived up to the name. I had no interest in macho stuff and felt completely at sea where there were no seas (“come look at the freak!”) My journey as a gay man and becoming a member of the New York theater community is quite the saga and it's now all in this book, complete with sex and drugs and musical theater!”

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter Keddy 

Local Shows

	EN EL TIEMPO DE LAS MARIPOSAS Repertorio (1/07-12/31)
	Men Love Horsies Royal Family Productions (11/13-11/13)
	Hold AMT Theater (10/26-11/15)
	FunikiJam’s WORLD MUSIC FAIR Actors Temple Theatre (10/17-12/05)
	LA GRINGA Repertorio (2/08-12/31)
	Oratorio for Living Things Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center (11/06-11/08)
	LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA Repertorio (11/15-12/31)
View All Shows Add a Show