The Gaze… No Homo will begin streaming on Friday, Nov. 20.
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).Videos