Queer Voices
Queer Voices
May 7 2025 Queer Voices, Wesley Winston plays Hamlet, Boy Erased discussion and Vincent Victoria
Brett Cullum takes over the show and gives three interviews. First an interview with local actor Wesley Whitson, who is playing HAMLET in a production from the 4th Wall Theatre Houston. The show runs at Spring Street Studios through May 24th.
Then Brett and his partner Lee Ingalls , from their podcast "Prairie Rainbow Review", review the book "Boy Erased", which was also made into a coming of age movie in 2018
And finally Brett has a conversation with Vincent Victoria, who for the last 10 years has been running his own theatrical company that produces both plays and films in Houston.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a podcast version of a broadcast radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brett Cullum has three segments. First, an interview with local actor Wesley Whitson, who is playing Hamlet in a production from the Fourth Wall Theatre Company. The show runs at Spring Street Studios through May 24th.
Speaker 2:This production is from New York City. It's from a theater company called the Bedlam Theater Company. They're very interested about the relationship between the actor and the audience and they try and dissolve that wall as much as possible, and I think it works particularly well for Shakespeare.
Speaker 1:Then Brett and his partner, Lee Ingalls, from their podcast review the book Boy Erased, which was also made into a coming-of-age movie in 2018. And Brett has a conversation with Vincent Victoria, who for the last 10 years has been running his own theatrical company that produces both plays and films in Houston.
Speaker 3:From May 2nd through May 11th, I have what I'm calling my Devalicious Project, which is a series of three short one-act plays written by me, and the first one is called Ella to Marilyn and it's about the friendship between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1:Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:I'm Brett Cullum and today I have the honor of talking to one of the biggest talents here in Houston. Wesley Whitson is a Houston native who graduated from the University of Houston. He was a Catherine G McGovern's College of the Arts first graduating class member. Wesley has been on stage in so many Shakespeare shows, musicals, dramas, you name it. He got to play Princess Cordelia in King Lear, cornelius the Doctor in Cymbeline. Twelfth Night he was on stage at the Alley and Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream. But now Wesley is poised to face his biggest challenge yet, because he is playing Hamlet in Fourth Wall's production of the Shakespearean classic. So welcome to Queer Voices, wesley Whitson.
Speaker 2:Hi Brett.
Speaker 4:It is so good to see you. It's good to see you too. Okay so, hamlet. Okay so this is a show that 4th Wall is putting up and they are running it May 2nd through the 24th. Tell me about this particular adaptation, because it has a little bit of a different pedigree than what you would normally kind of know about.
Speaker 2:Yes, so this production is from New York City. It's from a theater company called the Bedlam Theater Company and they're very interested about the relationship between the actor and the audience and they try and dissolve that wall as much as possible. And I think it works particularly well for Shakespeare, because so much of Shakespeare is direct address and bringing the audience in. But this production is unique because there's only four actors that are going to be playing all of the parts that are in Hamlet.
Speaker 4:Does this scare you? I mean Hamlet, it's like iconic.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'd be a fool if I said it didn't scare me a little bit. It scares me a lot. I mean there's a lot of room to mess it up and there's room to fail. I think that's one side of it. The other side of it that I'm trying to hang on to is there's a long line of people who've done it before me and they've done it well and they've done it successfully and I'm hanging on to that because I stand on their shoulders. And it's such a popular play that there's so much media literature out there about it play that there's so much media literature out there about it. I've never felt alone working on this process. I've had a lot of handholding from the greats who've come before me.
Speaker 4:Well, it's crazy when you look at the pedigree of all the actors that have done this before. And if you do it uncut, the show is four hours long. I mean, it's Shakespeare's longest play and I think it's the longest play in the Western literature or whatever. So how are you guys approaching the length to this one? How long is it going to be in total? Do you have a feeling for that yet?
Speaker 2:We're doing most of the play, which is awesome. There are a few cuts here and there, which is awesome. There are a few cuts here and there, but this is pretty much as close to the full play as we can get. Our running time is going to be around three hours with two intermissions.
Speaker 4:Well, Wesley Whitson, you seem to gravitate towards Shakespeare more than any young actor that I really know. I mean, and I know that it just Shakespeare scares me and it scares a lot of actors, because it's raw, it's rough and it's iambic pentameter and a lot of lines what is it about Shakespeare that you love?
Speaker 2:I think he says things the best. I think he says things he cuts right to the core of what he wants to say. He gets to the nub of it in as few words as possible. I had an English teacher who used to say use brilliant brevity, and I think that Shakespeare is a great example of that. He writes, you know, with iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the language of the heart, and there's something about that that has always really resonated with me. And besides, it's just some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. He's not only the greatest, one of the greatest playwrights ever, he's also one of the greatest poets ever, and I think that's a beautiful combination.
Speaker 4:I feel really at home in it arguably the greatest I mean, I don't know in this show.
Speaker 2:I mean everybody can quote hamlet, at least a little part of it, oh yeah I think that's a another part of the anxiety going into it is it's so well known that you know you start to be or not to be, and the audience is going to be going along with you in their heads, for the first couple of lines at least.
Speaker 4:Yeah, how do you make it your own? I mean, like, because that's the thing that I'm always afraid of is, if I do a show that I've known that some really iconic people have done, you know, I get so worried because I don't want to copy them. Obviously I want to make it mine. So how do you make Amelie the Wesley Whitson version?
Speaker 2:What are you doing? Kind of different, I think. I'm just trying to find where I am in the play. I'm trying to find where wesley exists inside of hamlet and then drawing those connections and trying to bring bridge the gap between him and I. I think, as actors, one of our big superpowers is that we are individuals. There is, you know, there is there's only one of me, and I'm trying to bring that sense of individuality to Hamlet, who is such an individual to begin with. He's, I mean, he's a brilliant, brilliant young man, renaissance prince let's take it back a little bit further.
Speaker 4:You grew up here in houston, is that correct? Yes, how did you get involved in theater? What was little wesley's entrance into the theatrical arts?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was doing sports for a while and it just wasn't. It wasn't working for me. I was doing t-ball and I was in the outfield picking clovers and my mom was like we need to try something different. So she put me in a community theater. It's the country playhouse was the country playhouse, now it's Queensberry theater out in West Houston, and I met a woman named Barbara Lassiter and she became one of my first mentors and she really helped me to find my way as a young actor. She saw something in me and she pushed me to go for it.
Speaker 4:And you went to HSVVA too. I did. The old location, the one in Montrose, is that right? Yes, that's right. Yeah, now they're downtown. I haven't even old location, the one in Montrose, is that right? Yes, that's right. Yeah, now they're downtown.
Speaker 2:I haven't even seen the new one yet I know that new building is gorgeous State of the art.
Speaker 4:But I miss having it here in Montrose, a few blocks away.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's a very different vibe With having them not in the neighborhood. Yeah, so are there any shows that you look back particularly proud of that you just say, wow, this was a dream world for me and I got to do it. King.
Speaker 2:Lear was. I don't know what happened, and it's just. Sometimes that way you get the right people at the right time with the right script and it's like lightning in a bottle. Something beyond us takes over and it's just, it's correct. And I don't know. That entire process was so wonderful. I experienced King Lear in college. We'd worked on it one year. We did a project called the Turbo Project and the Turbo Project we had to put up a play in one week, so we did King Lear. If you put up a play in one week, so we did king lear. If you can believe it in one week and no, I can't believe- it.
Speaker 4:I know, I know it was it was absurd.
Speaker 2:It really was, but I was, I think, a sophomore or junior, so I didn't grasp the play fully at the time, or and I was playing a messenger in it. So I wasn't on for most of the scenes and I didn't really the parts of it that I liked I really liked. I thought the sisters in it were so cool, these evil sisters that are. They're trying to take over the kingdom. But it wasn't until I did it with houston shakespeare festival that I fell in love with that play. I think it is just. I think Hamlet's incredible, but there's something about King Lear that is so, so special to me.
Speaker 4:Okay, so now here's another question for you In the LGBTQQIP2SAA community. Which letter represents you? What do you identify with?
Speaker 2:I'm gay. Okay, when did you come out? I came out in high school hspda, that it was a. It was a very safe place to to come out and that would have been probably 2010 or 2011 that I that I came out. But I had boyfriends in high school and it was never frowned upon and I'm forever grateful for that.
Speaker 4:Right place, right time, obviously For you. How do you think that identity affects you in acting, or does it?
Speaker 2:That's a great question, I think. So I've been thinking a lot about, like I said, where I align with Hamlet and there's something about Hamlet and the way that he feels othered and separated from everyone else in the kingdom that feels distinctly queer to me and queer coded and queer coded, that sense of being you know someone else and not being accepted or nobody gets you, is something that I've really been able to latch onto.
Speaker 4:Well, one of the things that you said that really resonated with me earlier is I had done a previous interview with Dylan Godwin at the Alley's Resident Company and he told me that he had this epiphany just a few seasons ago ago, that he realized that he had to accept himself as part of each of his characters yeah and I have always gotten a strong sense of that from you. When I watch you on stage, I do feel like there's a little bit of you in there.
Speaker 4:So tell me about when you approach a role and how you weave that into it. Do you actually consciously do that or do you, kind of like, try to become? What is your process when you do a character? Do you separate yourself completely or do you? Are you conscious of bringing yourself to it?
Speaker 2:I'm always conscious of bringing myself to it. There's some people that are outside in, and I think I'm more inside out.
Speaker 4:Okay, so one of the things that I've noticed is you regularly perform at Michael's Outposts as part of the Broadway group, so how did you hook up with them? Are you guys all like a really tight group or is it kind of loosey-goosey?
Speaker 2:It's a tight friend group. I met Regina, who is the host of the show, in college and she competed in a local drag competition called Desi's Drag Race and it used to take place at Michael's Outpost. I don't know where it takes place now, but she won the competition and the prize for winning the competition was a drag show. The finale was present your idea for a drag show, and her idea was the Broadway a drag show, and her idea was the broadway, and I think the broadway is houston's only broadway drag review. So she really cornered the market there and it's been running ever since the eighth. The eighth year anniversary is coming up. It's this monday, I believe.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, yeah when I moved to houston I'm not gonna tell what year it was, but it used to be the theater kids all got together and did karaoke, yeah, and and I was always like so nervous to even go because, yeah, these people would kill any number they did it at guava lamp forever.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah yes, that's exactly what I was thinking about and I was like I am not going up there and doing my version of whatever these kids look like. They just performed this. Yeah, oh my god. So tell me what are some of your dream roles, like what's next for you after hamlet, where are you going or when do you want to go?
Speaker 2:Where do I want to go? I obviously would love to do more Shakespeare. I'm very interested in spreading my wings in terms of Shakespeare companies across the country and seeing what can happen there In terms of roles. I really, really want to play Richard II in R2. But but that I don't know when or if that'll happen in houston. I don't know if a lot of history plays get get produced here in town, but I love that play so so much.
Speaker 4:Well, just talk to classical theater company, we'll. We'll slip them a little bribe for next year, or something.
Speaker 2:I've always thought it would be really good as a one-man show, but I would need to sit down and figure that out.
Speaker 4:You know, Main Street did that at one time. It wasn't Richard II, though I can't remember what it was, but they turned one of them into a one-man show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was Hamlet, I think.
Speaker 4:It was Guy Roberts. Yeah, maybe it was that, but wow, no, that'd be great. I'm so excited to see what you do. I mean, I've got my tickets already reserved for Hamlet and now you're making me very nervous because you're talking about breaking that fourth wall and I think I'm sitting way too close. Now I'm going to be like, but just a reminder, fourth wall's adaptation of Hamlet runs at their location in the spring street studios from May 2nd through May 24th. Wesley Whitson is going to be the star of it. He's going to be surrounded by what three other people that are going to take on all the other roles. But you just play Hamlet, because that's too much of a line load for any thing else in the play. So break legs. You're such a great actor, I've enjoyed watching you and this is such a legendary role, so I couldn't be more thrilled or more proud that you're gonna take this on, and with fourth wall and kim and phil and all this, I mean it. Just it couldn't line up any better.
Speaker 1:Thank you, brett. Thank you so much. Community resource. Kpft has no corporate or government strings attached funding, which means we're free to program responsibly, but without outside influence. Will you participate in KPFT financially? This station needs everyone who listens to chip in a few dollars to keep the station going, because that's the way it works. Even if you're listening over the internet on another continent, you can still contribute. Even if you're listening over the internet on another continent, you can still contribute. Please become an active member of the listener community by making a tax deductible contribution. Please take a minute to visit kpftorg and click on the red donate now button.
Speaker 4:Thank you. This is Brett Lee again, and we're in a book club with our friends, and recently we discussed this book about gay conversion therapy. It's called Boy Erased. It was written in 2016 by an author called Gerard Conley and that recounted his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that enrolled him in conversion therapy. Now, what he hoped was that it would expose ex-gay groups and gay conversion therapy programs as lacking in compassion and more likely to cause harm than cure anything. And then in 2018, joel Edgerton, a filmmaker, wrote and directed Boy Erased, which was a film adaptation of that memoir, and so it was an interesting film and things like that. So we watched the movie yesterday. We thought this would be a good topic to kind of talk about gay conversion therapy.
Speaker 6:basically yeah, yeah, no, I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed watching the movie. They definitely followed each other quite a bit. The they did separate out on a couple of things and some of them that were more pointed out in the movie were a little bit diluted in the book.
Speaker 4:Well, I think the movie tries to amp up the drama and I think the book is probably more accurate of what that conversion therapy was like. I mean, I think the book is absolutely factual and to the letter what happened to him, and I think in the movie they make it amped up a little bit. It's a little bit more dramatic. I thought they took some license with that and I was like I'm not so sure. I would say read the book over the movie, would you say that?
Speaker 6:For me, I usually enjoy the movie more than the book, which is why I like to read the book before I see the movie, before I read the book, before I see the movie, before I read the book. That way I have images in my mind of the people. So, and this one, doing it the way that we did the movie kind of crystallized some of the parts of the book that were a little bit I don't want to say ambiguous, but they were diluted a little bit, such as in the end when she asked the therapist what are your credentials? I mean, that was a standout moment in the movie, but in the book it was kind of glossed over a little bit. I thought I did get it, you do get it, but just not to the same.
Speaker 4:it didn't have the same punch in a book you have gerard's point of view right and you don't really have the other characters and anything. In a movie, and especially a movie where you have Nicole Kidman as the mother and Russell Crowe as the father, they're going to give them a little bit more moments than they would in the book Because obviously the book is more focused on the boys' perspective and only the boys'. So I thought it was interesting just to kind of compare the two. The movie didn't do so well at the box office. I mean it only made like a million bucks more than what it cost to make, I think.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and I think that that's kind of common. You know, the audience that the movie should have been made for probably was made for. I don't think they're going to go see it, and that's a sad statement, because what will happen then and we can talk about this more in a minute but is that it sets this up to happen again, because the people that need to know this aren't willing to go out and learn about it or see what the actual impact of those kind of things are.
Speaker 6:So it's going to happen again, sadly, and for some of the people in both the book and the movie, they don't survive it. It's very difficult for children to go through that.
Speaker 4:But when we talk about not surviving it, they take their life by their own hand. I mean, it's not like they kill them, it's they commit suicide, because that's one of the things is that in the therapy they are completely telling you that you're unfixable, you're disgusting, you're sinful, you need to change all of those other things, and when you can't, you know, obviously you have some deep feelings about that and things like that, and I think it's more accepted in the South. I mean, I hate to say that, but I think that this was a movement that really started kind of in the Bible Belt. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6:To that length? Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Well, the actual institution is Love in Action, which is what they talk about, and Love in Action was actually based in Memphis, tennessee, a town that I actually was in for college and a lot of my started my adult life. So I was very aware of them and I don't know who referred me to the program. Someone in my family did. I don't know if it was my the program. Someone in my family did. I don't know if it was my parents, if it was my grandparents, I have no clue. So I don't want to accuse anybody of anything like that, but I had people come from the program try to get me to join it. I got letters constantly from them and different brochures and stuff like that and invitations to come and tour the place. I actually did once or twice actually go and I checked it out in the real world.
Speaker 4:So it was weird for me to read this book because I was so aware of love in action and they actually had a center where you could go and you could go through their programs and things like that. But they also had several houses out back where they would have people live that were like more problematic cases where they actually lived dormitory style on the campus, if you want to call it that. I mean, it was really just a couple of houses, but they worked in the day and then came straight back to the love and action area and that's. And I think that what we both kind of realized is it was really a money thing. It cost a lot of money to send somebody to this therapy.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it definitely left me. Both the book and the movie left me with the feeling that the people that were running that organization found a way to make money from people that were. They felt that they were suffering. They wanted to help their children. What parent doesn't want to help their children? And if there's a cost associated with that, they're willing to pay that cost. I just think it was taking advantage of a situation in a really ugly way.
Speaker 4:Well, in both the book and the movie they did mention you know, hey, we don't think college is right for you. Why don't you spend a year here and get fixed Right?
Speaker 6:And I'm sure the answer would be send the money that your parents would have done in college Instead of paying tuition.
Speaker 4:Right Pay for this. Right yeah For a mirror, yeah, so.
Speaker 6:Now I definitely saw that in both the book and the movie. So, kind of stepping past that a little bit from our own personal experience because you know, from my perspective, I think most gay guys growing up have a very similar experience to what this gentleman shared in his story, and that is, we're brought up in a world where we know something that's foundational to who we are is the one thing that people don't seem to like or be okay with, and I can't tell you the number of times that I have said, you know, my parents tried to fix me. You've said that. They said that in both the book and the movie. We definitely have a sense that people around us are trying to fix us. Now I'm going to go off topic for a little bit, but I'll circle back around.
Speaker 6:One of the benefits that I think that I had was, you know, I wrote two books. My first book is my parents' story. So I tried to do the narration of their story from their perspective. So I had to look at, you know, what was their history? What was their childhood like? You know, what were their parents like, what was their young adulthood, etc. What was available in the communities, what were they being told at the time that they were living in Because that's all they had.
Speaker 6:So my parents, the medical community at that time saw being gay as an illness. So they went to the experts and tried to help their child, which you know. I have to give them credit. Even though the path was a bad one, they're being told that that was the path to take. So there were all these programs that I participated in but as trying to be fixed. They sent me to after school programs, summer camps, medical professionals, psychiatrists, all with the same goal to fix me.
Speaker 6:My issue with it then, even in retrospect, after I've forgiven my parents for doing that, was all the adults in my world at that time knew what was going on, knew what the circumstance was, and none of them were brave enough to put me on the right path. I was 18 years old before I found out. I was not the only one like me, and that's a shame. That's difficult to bring your kid up like that, and your experience is the same way, even though you were brought up 17 years later than me. Experience is the same way even though you were brought up 17 years later than me and enough had changed. You had more access to information than I did.
Speaker 4:You still had the same sense I did have the same sense, but I came of age in the middle of the aids crisis and there was a lot of talk about the morality of that situation and there was a lot of judgment and there was a lot of really weird passion around it. I think I knew more about it. I think I was more worried about being that way. I mean people would tell me all these awful things that you're going to die, you're going to get involved with drugs, you're going to do all the same things that they kind of used in this story, in this book that this guy wrote in 2016. And, by the way, I mean Gerard Conley, kind of a young guy, younger than us, and he went through this immersion therapy in the early 2000s. So that was really interesting to me that it was so much after you and I and you grew up in an era before when the mental health industry defined it as an illness. It was really in the early 70s when they actually kind of reversed course on that.
Speaker 4:So you're going to find that most conversion therapies are not mental health practitioners. I mean, they're not allowed to do that as a mental health person. It is absolutely the religious people, the religious providers and that's how they get around it. That's why Love in Action had to be sponsored by a church. That's why it had to be kind of a church program. Even that is even like, I don't know. It's even more icky in a weird way because it's attached to your faith, I mean it's oh so. That's kind of the hard truth of it, but it was definitely for both of us. Growing up, I don't think we had a good image from anyone around us of what the gay community was or anything like that. It was very vilified. Yeah, you had none.
Speaker 6:No image of it whatsoever.
Speaker 4:I had more of a vilification of it.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So one thing that the movie did do that I really didn't get a sense of in the book is the evolution of the parents and their thoughts surrounding this, and that does parallel my life as well. You know, once a mom and dad got past the point that their son's gay and it's just going to be that way. This is not a medical issue, that this is just how you are. They began their evolution and Dad comparing him and I, we are total opposites on that. I mean, he's on the extreme heterosexual side and I'm on the extreme homosexual side.
Speaker 6:But he evolved to the point where if you were, if you were not his favorite, you were. He certainly gave the appearance that you were and he was very accepting of us. He was eager for us to get married. So they evolved once they got married and in the movie that's the same thing that they implied that the family did evolve to where they were more accepting. In fact, it was something that he said. I don't think it was in the book or the movie very clearly, but it was in one of his YouTube videos that he said his mother finally got to the point where she would rather have a living gay son than a dead son, and that was kind of a turning point for her.
Speaker 4:Well, I think that was in the book actually and it was a breakdown in the car because the spoiler alert for the book boy erased, but the climax is a breakdown that he has in the car and they don't really do that in the movie. Necessarily. They did it a little bit, but they didn't do it to the extreme that they did in the book. But that was her statement there and I think that from hearing this author talk about his life afterwards, it took his parents many years to do that and I think that's your experience, I think that's my experience and we could argue that mine haven't completely come around but in some areas, but it is, it's a process.
Speaker 4:It really is like a weird thing that everybody in the LGBTQ plus community that you know, your parents, just don't understand. They don't accept it, they want to't understand, they don't accept it, they want to change it, they want to fix it, and it takes them a long time to get okay with it and I think that it's not an easy story to tell in two hours or in one book, because it's a progression of years and it's a degrees kind of a thing. It's very slow. It's a process. Right, right, right.
Speaker 6:You have to grab those significant moments over a very long period of time.
Speaker 4:But it's very horrible that this actually and I think one thing that our book club kind of expressed was that they thought it was kind of not around anymore or anything like that Love in Action actually had a famous falling out, because the guy that led it and Gerard mentions John Smead in the book but in the movie they actually changed his name. He actually left the organization, settled down with his husband in Texas and all this crazy stuff. And I got a sense of that when I saw Love in Action, that it was being run by gay people. A sense of that when I saw Love in Action that it was being run by gay people. It was kind of like this gay people torturing other gay people and trying to get them to think that they were wrong. It was very interesting in that way.
Speaker 4:But it just changed its name. It's still around. I mean, if you look at the history of it, it became something else. These conversion therapy programs are still out there and they're still legal. A lot of countries have banned it, but the US not so much. There are some states that have, but awkwardly for us, the state that we live in, no, it's perfectly legal still.
Speaker 6:Yeah and it's sad because it does kind of prey on those parents that are trying to do right by the child. Yeah, and it's just it's sad parents that are trying to do right by the child?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's just. It's sad. I think it's a question of is gay conversion therapy a natural thing? Would it seem natural to parents? And I think that in some areas it would seem natural and a natural thing to do. Like you said, you want your child, you want to do right by your child, you want to fix them, you want to take care of them, you want to have them healthy and things like that. I know there's that strong instinct and none of us come from gay parents unless we're adopted.
Speaker 6:You know, none of us were raised Certainly not my generation, your generation probably not, and generations after that?
Speaker 4:some are and some are not. We have some friends that are gay parents and I think it's very interesting and I think that the fears that people have about gay parents are so unfounded because I mean the, the gay parents that we know their, their kids are doing fine and, you know, not even necessarily gay. No, I mean, it's not like they influence them to do that. I don't think you can influence somebody to be a certain way right something that they're not right exactly.
Speaker 6:They're gonna be who they are and you're not gonna make else.
Speaker 4:Yeah which I think is the point I think that's the point of the book and the movie Boy Erased is that you can't get rid of this, no matter what I mean and that was the point of Love in Action is that even though they tried this, even the guys that ran it ended up admitting that they were that lifestyle. Yeah, so you can't escape it. But it was a very interesting look at how people tried to reprogram somebody to kind of make them think that it was possible, to kind of thwart that. And it was modeled after addiction. Basically it was like an alcoholic anonymous. Yeah, it was a tough thing.
Speaker 6:No, I think it was good For me. I would definitely recommend reading the book and watching the movie. If you don't want to read the book because it is a long book, just watch the movie. You'll pretty much get the same message.
Speaker 4:We get the same message, but I think the book is a little bit more truthful as far as the things that happen. Yes, yeah, yeah, I think the movie takes it up a notch. I think they fictionalized some of it.
Speaker 6:And some of the things happen out of order when they were from the book, but not so much so that it changed the message or any of that, it just made it more interesting, I think.
Speaker 4:Well, I think the book was hard because it was non-linear, it wasn't done by occurrences, it kind of left things for you to discover as it went through and it revealed things over time that had happened in the past, that affected the present or what was going on. That was interesting. But the movie kind of took a more conventional timeline and kind of just straightforwardly kind of told it with some flashbacks and things like that to fill in gaps and things like that. But it was interesting for that reason. But one of the things that I thought was interesting about the movie is they have a very popular gay singer. Troy Savan plays one of the love and action people and then flee from the red hot chili peppers, which was huge. When I was growing up we talked about music on our last episode. He was huge and he's in the thing movie. I'm like why are all these singers in here? And Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe oh my gosh, Can you imagine?
Speaker 6:having them play your parents. That's a little surreal. They did have photos at the end of the actual family and they did okay. So Nicole Kidman was much more beautiful than the mother. Not that the mother wasn't pretty, she was pretty in a very southern sort of way. Russell Crowe looked exactly like the father. Yeah, poor.
Speaker 4:Russell Crowe yeah, he definitely took on that whole. Look yeah.
Speaker 6:I thought it was an odd look, but then when I saw the actual pilot I thought, okay, they got what they went for All right.
Speaker 4:Well, boy Erased by Gerard Connolly. And then, of course, the film by Joel Edgerton, and actually Joel Edgerton adapted it and directed it, so it was a very important thing for him to do. I'm curious about why he thought that that was such a big mission for him to do that, but it's kind of a neat adaptation of the book, yes, so definitely worth checking out, definitely worth seeing if you want to understand a little bit more about conversion therapy and what that was like. I hope it's not as popular as it was back then. I think that back when I was coming of age it was really popular and I know for you it was the therapy which had to have been just even worse it was.
Speaker 6:I mean, there were so many other pieces of that that were just bad, but it wasn't like this for sure. Fortunately, my parents couldn't afford that, so it was an expensive program.
Speaker 3:I can tell you that.
Speaker 4:Well, that's our thoughts on Boy Erased.
Speaker 1:This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at kpftorg the night is long and the path is dark. Look to the sky for one place. The dark will come. This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 4:Vincent Victoria is a playwright, he's a director, he's a filmmaker, he's an actor. He's also a fashion icon, by the way, who has been producing work here in the Houston community for at least the last 10 years, probably more. He's written scripts for theatrical productions, he's got a film company, and all of these works strive to bring historical figures of the black community alive in plays and movies. He has tackled subjects such as Hattie McDaniels, lena Horne, eartha Kitt, the Supremes, prince Rick James, even surprising figures such as black fashion designer Patrick Kelly, and even Trump January 6th protester Ashley Babbitt, who died during the riot that day. It's obvious Vincent has no topic that is taboo. Nothing's held back. Vincent Victoria, what an honor to get to talk to you. I mean, come on Well, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, brandon. It's an honor to be talking to you back again, because we have a theatrical history. We do, I would say, about eight or nine years now.
Speaker 4:It does. I've been following you and I've always said that you are one of my favorite companies in Houston that a lot of people I don't think know about. You're certainly strong in your community and you get a lot of what I call true community theater. You really are addressing your community, you're using your community as actors and you are writing for them. But I think you're much bigger than that. I think that if everybody got on board the Vince Victoria train, that we would all be entertained and enlightened and all these other things, cause I think you're one of the best producers in Houston and your work is so prolific. So, first up, let's just talk about what you've got coming up here in May.
Speaker 3:What have you got coming to?
Speaker 4:the Midtown Arts Theater.
Speaker 3:So from May 2nd through May 11th, I have what I'm calling my Devalicious Project, which is a series of three short one-act plays written by me, and the first one is called Ella to Maryland and it's about friendship between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe, and it's a topic that I've always wanted to write about, because I love Marilyn Monroe even more so than Ella Fitzgerald. Marilyn Monroe was one of my favorite movie stars growing up, so this is a way to honor her and my love of her work and her and her work. The second show is called the New Girl and it's about the Supremes after Diana Ross left. So that's what it talks about the conflicts that Jean Terrell felt about joining the Supremes. And the third show is called B-Day, and it's about the fan of Beyonce. So three different eras that I'm tackling here.
Speaker 4:Yeah we're going from all the way before, all the way to now. It's a derry on all the way back to Ella Fitzgerald. But yeah, a lot of stuff coming up and you also have a movie that you're working on right now. Is that a?
Speaker 3:case. It's called Eight Notes to Heaven. It's about the alleged rivalry between Prince and Rick James. It was a play 2023, but I've adapted it for the screen and I've added a few more things that weren't in the play and just added a few more surprises that I couldn't do on film.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry that I couldn't do on stage that I'm adding to the film. Yeah, yeah, and I saw the play, so I know what we're in for. The movies are always a little bit of a different animal, because you obviously can open them up, you can do some different things and things like that.
Speaker 3:And you can use AI that I can't use on stage, yeah a lot of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, now, how did all of this start? I've always wondered what was the genesis of you writing plays, making films. How did you get started in this?
Speaker 3:Writing plays really was an accident for me. Really, my first love is performing. Honestly, that's what I would. If I could do anything, it would be perform, but this is out of necessity, honestly. But I found that I have a stronger voice as a writer than I do as a performer. So that's how writing came about. I was living in New York in the early 2000s and I decided to come home and write because it was cheaper, for sure, and this is home, so I decided to build my base here as a writer.
Speaker 4:That's how it came about that is crazy and you really have a little company of performers. You've got a lot of people that you kind of call on regularly. I almost look at you guys as a troupe that you produce these plays and you write them, and they're quite often about historical figures, Women of the past. Basically, I always look at it as like there's a lot of divas in there. There's a lot of divas in there. You even had a divas ball at one point. That's right. The Billie Holidays, the Lena Horns, the Diana Rosses I mean all of these are the kit. What is it about these black women of the past that makes you want to say, hey, let's make a show about them.
Speaker 3:Well, those are the women that I idolized growing up. So that's the honest truth about it. Those women, the entertainers that fascinated me as a kid. If my mother wanted to punish me, she would punish me by taking the television away from me. That's enough punishment. I would be miserable without looking at the television and those stars on television. So I've always had a love affair with great female entertainers of the past Some males too, now, don't get me wrong but predominantly females that I write about and I'm inspired by. Sometimes I'll get inspired by a male entertainer, and sometimes I force myself to write about a male because I find myself like, well, they're tired of hearing about these women, so I need to write about a male. Because I find myself, well, they're tired of hearing about these women, so I need to write about a man sometimes. So, but but you? Know that's that's how.
Speaker 3:That's how I got started right falling in love with these people, because I grew up with them on television and that was my entertainment growing up about being an only child you know, we had that in common.
Speaker 4:I didn't know, know that I was an only child too. So there you are. But do you feel like these voices from the past? What do you think that they have to say to the present? Because I always feel like your plays kind of bring a little bit of that into the mix.
Speaker 3:Well, I always tell people when I write bread that I sleep with these characters as I write. I go to bed with them with with a book by my bed, I listen, I'm listening to an interview with them as I go to sleep. So I try to capture their essence when I'm, when I'm writing, and I and I try to be true to how I feel that they would, would talk and I would try to get dialogue. That I think is true to their personalities. What I think they're trying to say is they're still relevant that's my phone Still relevant in today's society.
Speaker 4:Well, it's interesting because you really do. You bring this history alive and I know that a lot of the actors you work with are a lot of them. Let's face it, they're younger than us. They probably don't know about these people.
Speaker 3:They don't A lot of them don't and it's surprising me. It surprises me and it's shocking to me and it kind of disappoints me in a way. So that's why I think it's my duty to let them know about these people of the past. It really is. It's so important for them to know what they went through and the things that they needed to know, because the performers today have it much easier than those performers did. You know performers today, you know they can create a TikTok video and they're famous. These stars had to know how to sing, dance, act and really do these things well, and I just, you know, just put on an internet video, you know.
Speaker 4:Well, and then in the case of somebody like Hedy McDaniels or, good gosh, who else I mean, there's a lot of them that you have they face segregation, they face racism, they face this kind of thing where the industry wasn't even open to them. Right, I mean, they were like ugh, you know.
Speaker 3:But they stuck to it because they knew this is what they were supposed to do. They knew that's what their gift was and they went into it knowing the cons against them. But they stuck to it and they made a name for themselves.
Speaker 4:Yeah, one of the things that was driving me crazy, you did a whole thing about Josephine Baker which I thought was just amazing. I mean, I learned so much when I come to your shows. It's one of the reasons why I always make a point of coming, because it makes me learn so much more about these people than what I just would know on the surface. Certainly, I grew up as fans of some of them, but a lot of them. Their history eludes me sometimes and I'm like, oh well, I didn't know. Oh, this is kind of interesting. You know Eartha Kitt. I don't think anybody really realized how much she really went against the government. I mean, my gosh, this is true. That whole incident with Lady Bird Johnson. She actually was outspoken at one of her events and then it just caused all kinds of chaos.
Speaker 3:She was blacklisted after that for about a decade in this country. She was totally blacklisted, she, for about a decade in this country. She was totally black, so she couldn't get work in the United States. She did work in Europe, of course, but after 1968, until Timbuktu came out in 1978, she was really a person known in the United States really.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is amazing to see all of the things that these women have gone through, all the things that this community has gone through and supported and things like that. But one of the things I these women have gone through, all the things that this community's gone through and supported and things like that. But one of the things I always notice about you and your plays is that your plays always felt like films, because they were very quick, moving, they had short scenes and they moved from location to location and then I noticed you drifted kind of into film right starting making film, and I always wonder do you like one over the other right now, or is there one that you prefer?
Speaker 3:I prefer making films, but I enjoy performing in plays better. So, yeah, I like the process of putting a film together. I love all of that and actually films came out of necessity as well. During COVID I got a grant to do Black Sheree as a play, but because when COVID hit they said you could adapt the performance that you want to do to another medium if you had to. So I adapted that to a film and I've gone on on stopping film ever since then.
Speaker 4:Well, and for the listeners or readers, black Cherie obviously was about the first Black pen-up publication, but it wasn't called Black Cherie, it was called Duke, yes, duke. Thank you for reminding me of that one that was a big.
Speaker 3:Not many people have heard of that. It's a rare, very rare magazine, very obscure magazine. It only lasted six issues, so nobody really has heard of that. I just happened to find out about it while I was reading a small little article in a book about the 1950s and it talks about the guy who founded it. So that's how I learned about it.
Speaker 4:It was an amazing story and, again, something from history that I probably wouldn't have known if I hadn't seen your shows and things like that, or your film, black Surrey, and it's just amazing how much you weave from the past into the present. It almost feels like that's your focus and would you say that that is what you work on the most. How do you approach these ideas?
Speaker 3:I mean, do you just kind of say all right, I want to take something historical. Honestly, Brett, when I first started writing, I was trying to be a popular writer and do things that had a more urban feel to it, because that's what everybody was doing, that's what people were writing about. But that was not really what I wanted to do, because I wrote a show called Auntie Shamika, woman of the Ghetto, and it's about it's a parody of Auntie Maine and but it wasn't fulfilling to me as a writer, even though I think it is a good work and I think, since people know me as a historical writer now, I think I am going to bring that show back one day. But history is what I love and what I like writing about and I think I am a full expert on this subject.
Speaker 3:I didn't study it in an academic setting but I studied it so much as a child that I can you know these things, I can rattle off the top of my head about these people as a child. That I can, you know these things, I can rattle off the top of my head about these people. So I do have I think that is a skill and a mark that I have cornered, because I don't think a lot of black theaters are doing these type of shows that I do. I think I have this is my own niche that nobody else has really cornered yet except for me.
Speaker 4:It's interesting when I contrast you with the other companies in town and of course you have to get props to the ensemble theater. They do amazing work but they really do have their lane. I mean, they really do have what they produce and it's great. But yours is definitely centered around a very specific kind of thing and I've always appreciated the contrast of those two working together. It's a great example of how you can have addressing a similar community but doing it with very different programming and very different plays and things like that, and I think that that's really admirable, that you kind of found your own way to get in there and start something new.
Speaker 3:Basically, the ensemble is where actually I started myself. Yeah, yeah, I know we talk about you, right right, but I had to build my own brand. You know, the ensemble is my own brand and I think they're, like you said, they're very distinct different brands. So I am proud that I've been able to do that. That's one thing that I'm very proud of to make my mark in the Houston theater community.
Speaker 4:Well, you've definitely done that. Give me a little background. You mentioned studying and education and things like that. Did you take performance or writing or acting or anything like that before you started doing all this? Oh yeah, I did.
Speaker 3:I started right across the street from Midtown at ACC under the tutelage of Ed Muth, who just passed away a few months ago. Ed Muth was one of my mentors, kate Poe was one of my mentors and Denise Lebrun. She's a famous French chanteuse. She passed away a couple of years ago. She was my musical theater teacher, so I learned so much from them. Harold Haynes at the Encore Theater, so that's where I got a lot of my training from the ensemble. Of course I had internships there when I first started out, so that's where my background is Person performing, not in writing at all. I, I think I'm a, I'm a natural writer. That's, that's a gift that I didn't study, but I just that. That's that's a gift that I didn't. I haven't said it at all, but. But I my teacher in when I was in high school said vincent, you should write. I didn't want to write, I wanted to be on stage, but I'm writing now and writing a lot. You're very prolific. I'm amazed.
Speaker 3:You called me the playwright laureate of Houston, and I take that I've copied that now, so that's why I'm calling myself now.
Speaker 4:Yes, no, I mean, I don't know any other.
Speaker 4:A lot of theaters are proud when they get a world other a lot of theaters are proud when they get like a world premiere, like a lot of theaters say, oh my gosh, we have this world premiere. And I'm thinking, well, people, you know, or they commission something from somebody and they don't really develop that. You do this all the time, which is just. I don't think that people understand the scope of that work, of that you are writing, you are directing, you are producing, you are making these products and I mean you just take it from cradle to grave. I mean it's you're your own thing, you're a one man show, you're like a virtuoso one man band and one man production company, which is just insane.
Speaker 3:It's gotta be an insane amount, and sometimes I'm acting with myself, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I love that when that happens, because I think you're a great performer too. I mean, have been some of my favorite moments seeing you up on the stage.
Speaker 3:But let me say this, brent, now I have done other people. I do do other work sometimes, like I've done shows, a couple of Zora Neale Hurston shows. I have done her, yes, some work by her, and I've done a few other writers, but primarily my seasons are my work, primarily they are. But I do like doing other people's work sometimes and you've been for years at Midtown Arts Center.
Speaker 4:How did that relationship develop?
Speaker 3:How did you get hooked up with them? It was well. When I rented the space for my first show, auntie Shamika, I just started doing shows there. At first I was just doing one show per year and I would write one show per year. Then I actually started working at Midtown and I'm actually in Midtown right now. I am the office manager at Midtown. I actually booked the space for Midtown Arts Center, so I built a relationship with the owner of Midtown and that's how that worked. That's how it came about.
Speaker 4:And a lot of people don't know Midtown Arts Center, but it's right at the cross street of what is it? It's the Branch and Holman. Yes, exactly, it's a very great space, very intimate. It's a great place to see theater. It's got a three-quarter thrust stage in it, a black box. I mean it's just, it's incredible. I definitely one of the unsung gems of Houston.
Speaker 3:Really A historic building. It used to be an old grocery store in the 1930s. Wow, yes, and it used to be. And right across the street is the Heiner Theater, which was the old Jewish synagogue. But this was an old Jewish grocery store in the 1930s 1940s.
Speaker 4:That's amazing, and they're right across the street from each other, which is just wild when you think about it, because I've definitely done a lot of stuff in that space, across the street too, right? Yeah, well, let's go into a little bit of your personal stuff, definitely for the Queer Voices audience LGBTQIA plus community what do you identify with? Where are you on that spectrum?
Speaker 3:I identify myself as a gay man. I think you're the first person I've ever really said this out on a public space. But that's what I identified myself as and I think as I get older you will see me being more out for that community, more so as I write as I get older, you know, because it's important for the communities to see somebody giving them a voice. But I've always written characters that are LGBTQ. I have, but I just never made it a primary focus of who I am. But as I get older I think I will start doing that even more.
Speaker 4:Well, you did an amazing show about Patrick Kelly and about his relationship with Bette Davis, which I don't think a lot of people know about. He's a fashion designer very influential in the 80s, Like the first black fashion designer to be in France. That was produced by the. Help me with that.
Speaker 3:Jean-Baptiste, I can't think of the French name, but he was the very first one, the very first African-American. This was in 1986. Right, his reign was only five years old. He only had a. He was very prolific with his designs during that time, but he unfortunately died of AIDS on New Year's Day in 1990. So, and he didn't have a successor plan, so his work has really died. Yes, but just amazing, he didn't have a successor plan, so his work has really died, you know honest.
Speaker 4:But just amazing, and he was a friend with Betty Davis in her final kind of part of her career and designed all of her stuff for him. And I went back after I saw your play and I watched clips of Betty Davis on David Letterman talking about Patrick Kelly and how he's the only person who's got a design for her and I was just like wow, this, this is amazing and she was buried in one of his designs.
Speaker 3:She was buried in one of his designs
Speaker 4:it is so amazing when you look at this history of all of that. It's great, and we need people like that to really focus on that. And one of the questions I always have for you is what do you think is presenting itself to this community now, like in this day and age? I mean, what is the thing that's? What do you think is presenting itself to this community now, like in this day and age? I mean what is the?
Speaker 3:thing that's facing kind of the black gay male right now. Well, so many things. First of all, it's getting your voice heard and having a strong voice. That's the most important thing, and not hiding the voice. That's so important for the black gay community especially even more so for the transgender community not to be afraid and to be outspoken and not to let people take advantage of you and when you see wrongs, speak out against those wrongs. You know, speak out against injustice. People speak out against those wrongs. You know, speak out against injustice. People speak out against someone that is discriminating against you. So that is important to this community and for me to be out there writing as I do. I think it gives an inspiration to other young writers out there and other performers.
Speaker 4:I think it really does, and the writing that you do, I think, shows the trailblazers of these people that did that, and I think that that's the epiphany that I just had about your work is that it really is these voices from the past telling us what to do today. I mean, they're really, these are the people that blazed this trail the Hattie McDaniels of the world, the Eartha Kitts, the Lena Horns all of these people just absolutely gave us a guidebook of how to get it done.
Speaker 3:And I just felt them. They're here with me now. Some of them just touched me I don't know which one it was, but they're here with us. They're still here. They really are still here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I completely believe you, and they do speak volumes to today's generation. So I think that that's what Vincent Victoria presents and your productions are so important to the city. Certainly super excited to see what's coming up here in May.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage QueerVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka, deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza Drusman are contributors. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt, Thank you.
