8 days til THE ROLE

My good friend Joe Okonkwo (with whom I’m doing a reading at the Bureau of General Services in June) gave me a great quote from legendary author Toni Morrison:

If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

When I sat down to write “The Role,” I did so for many reasons, but chief among them was that I was tired of waiting for someone else to write a LGBT novel that explores the drama that goes on backstage. As an actor, many of my favorite memories involved me coming home and recounting all the crazy stuff that happened. For example, a few years ago I was doing a show, and when the curtain was about to rise, one of the actors had not yet shown up. When the stage manager finally managed to reach him, he was on the Staten Island Ferry headed into the city. This meant he would be at least another thirty to forty-five minutes. We had no understudy for the role, so we had to wait, which meant we also had to fill time. We were fortunate that one of the playwright’s distant relatives was in the audience, and he gave an impromptu speech to help us buy time. I was absolutely mortified in the moment, but as soon as it was over, it became this amazing legendary story that I love recounting at parties. The show went on (as it must) and everyone gave a really excellent performance (especially the actor who was late!)
 
These kinds of moments were what I hoped to convey in “The Role.” I wanted to write a novel that points out that while the actors are telling one story on stage, many times there are even bigger ones happening behind the scenes.