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Personal Injury & Wrongful Death Criminal Law Immigration Law Insurance Claims Employment & Labor Civil Rights www.domingogarcia.com 214-941-8300 Email [email protected] Open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Dallas | Houston | Austin | Tyler | Odessa | Longview OUT north texas 2019 9 COVER STORY Theatre Group in Los Angeles. But first, But it hasn’t lost its impact. Michael Urie: he took a few minutes to chat with OUT Texas native talks 'Torch Song' North Texas about Torch Song, the so-called “What Arnold’s striving for [in Torch Song] and LGBT history dangers of playing gay characters and what — marriage equality, to be a father, to you have to do when you visit North Texas. have the same kind of life his mother had even though he’s a gay man — he wasn’t When the first staging of Harvey Fierstein’s play began with the first staging advocating for everyone to do that [when Fierstein’s Tony Award-winning Torch Song of International Stud, the first installment of he wrote the plays]. He was just saying Trilogy opened at New York City’s Richard the trilogy, in 1978 at the Off-Off- they should have the option,” Urie said. “At Allen Center, in October 1981, “it blew Broadway theater, La the time, that idea was quite radical. It blew people’s minds” that a gay man would be MaMa, people’s minds that someone would be fighting for a chance to be a husband and out there asking for those things. In 1982, a father, to see a gay man that had adopted a son was like science fiction. It was exciting, but it was shocking, too. “Now, we have marriage equality. Now there are lots of ways for gay people to have children. That doesn’t shock people like it once did,” he continued. “But what we’ve found that is still extremely topical is the conversation Arnold has with his mother in the third act — about acceptance, about love and respect — and the conversations he has with [his bisexual lover] Ed about being true to himself, about feeling respectful, feeling self-respectful. “These conversations are absolutely still happening all over the world,” Urie said. “Sure, there are certain places where you can see people living out and proud and free. But there are lots of other places where it’s still a real struggle. I have met so many people, waiting at the stage door to tell me that what Arnold talks about in this nearly 40-year-old play still resonates with their lives.” E.T.C. It opened at the Off Broadway And that, Urie said, is why he feels it is so Players Theatre later in May. important to take this Torch Song revival on Part two, Fugue In A Nursery, was staged the road: to bring that message to people to have a family and a life at La MaMa a year later, in February 1979. all across the country that need to hear that like his mother had, actor Michael Urie Torch Song Trilogy — which included the affirmation. said. third play, Widows and Children First! — opened in October 1981, starring Fierstein “Yes, this is a totally different time from Today, more than 35 years later, marriage himself as Arnold. The trilogy opened on 1982. We have the internet now, and social equality is the law of the land, and LGBT Broadway in June 1982, winning two Tony media. There are lots of [LGBT people] families are — almost — commonplace. Awards, two Drama Desk Awards and the on TV and in the movies,” he said. “But And yet, Torch Song still resonates. Theatre World Award. sitting quietly in a theater, listening while Urie, an openly-gay actor who was born the drama is playing out on stage where a in Houston and grew up in Plano, just Fierstein adapted the trilogy for the big man is fighting for the right to be who he finished a 103-performance run starring screen, and the movie version of Torch is — you can’t ignore that. You have to take as drag queen Arnold Beckoff in Second Song Trilogy, starring Fierstein as Arnold, that in. Stage’s revival of Torch Song on Broadway, along with Matthew Broderick and Anne which followed an Off-Broadway run in Bancroft, opened in 1988. “If you go to the theater to find yourself, the fall of 2017. you will find yourself in Torch Song.” For the revival, Urie said, Fierstein has Now Urie is gearing up to hit the road as trimmed the play down to about three Urie was born in Houston, but when Arnold in a touring production of the show, hours. “It’s the same play, with all the same he was about 6 or 7, he said, he moved set to start in the fall of this year at Center characters’ it just happens faster,” he said. with his family to Plano. He graduated 10 OUT north texas 2019 from Plano Senior High School in 1998, “You don’t get typecast as ‘gay,” because if my generation is not diligent enough in then attended Collin County Community there’s not just one kind of gay character,” learning what it was like then, or if maybe College for a year before being accepted at Urie said. “I have been fortunate to play the generation that came before us has the Julliard School and moving to New York many different gay characters, and no two tried to protect us, keep us from seeing City at the age of 19. have been the same. I guess I have probably that horror they lived in. Or maybe they played more gay characters than straight just don’t want to talk about it any more,” Urie got his first big break in 2006 when he characters, but I haven’t been pigeon- Urie said. “When people come back from was cast as Marc St. James, the gay assistant holed.” war, they often don’t want to talk about to Vanessa Williams’ character, on the TV what they went through. It’s just too much show Ugly Betty. He stayed with the show In December 2018, the Gay Men’s Health to go through it again. That night, Harvey until it was cancelled in 2010. Crisis organization in New York honored read off all those names — Alvin Ailey, Urie with its Howard Ashman Award in Keith Haring, Freddie Mercury, Leigh Even though Marc St. James was openly recognition of “his contributions to the Bowery, and so many more who were cut gay, at the time, Michael Urie was not, the LGBT community and the fight against down too soon. actor said. “Privately, I was open about my HIV/AIDS.” For Urie, it was not only a life and my sexuality,” he said. “But I was great honor, it was also a lesson in some “When you think about it, it makes you not out of the closet publicly. Really, I had heartbreaking history. want to hold on tight and not stop working no public persona at all then. I had done no — ever.” interviews, and no one really cared about Ashman, he explained was the “great writer my personal life.” and lyricist” perhaps best known for the songs he wrote, with Alan Mencken, for By Tammye Nash Still, as with many LGBT actors, there Disney movies like The Little Mermaid, [email protected] was — and for many, there still is — “this Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.