OUTzone talks to Playwright Adam Bock!

October 13, 2006

OUTzone caught up with playwright Adam Bock just after his new play, The Thugs opened at Soho Rep last week. Since then, he's receieved rave reviews in Variety.com.

He’s cute as pie, charming as a Canadian (he's authentic!) and smart as hell. He sat down and talked with us about theater, the financial life of actors, and what it means to be a “gay playwright” these days.

OZ: Your play, The Thugs opened last weekend. How did the opening go?
It went gorgeously. They’re such good actors. My God.

OZ: What’s it about?
It’s a play about seven temps who are working on the ninth floor of a high rise building of a law firm. They’re doing really dull work, temping and coding in a law firm and they think someone might be killing people in the building, but they don’t know because they’re temps and nobody tells them anything. So the play is about the rumors and where they get their information, do they get information, is it right, is it wrong, and how groups deal with fear.

It’s kind of about fear and how we get so afraid of something that we ignore the stuff that’s right in front of us. It’s an echo of what the war is doing to us. We spend all this time over there, and we ignore what’s going on over here, and I feel like that’s a silly way of being.

And it’s also just about temps and about the idea that there are people who are disposable and how they’re treated in that way. It’s called The Thugs because the times – I feel like we’re living in a thuggish community sometimes. How we treat each other. And what passes as civility.

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My Coming Out: Bryan Thompson

October 12, 2006

Bryan Thompson is a designer living in San Diego. He currently writes the design blog for Bravotv.com, and he recently began contributing to OUTzone. His first story is about a very cool guy named Tug, which you can check out: HERE.

In 1979 I was only five years old but I worshipped Erik Estrada enough to tear a photo of him out of the TV Guide and tape it to my wall. Imagine my mom's surprise when she saw the shot of a shirtless "Ponch" right there over her young son's bed. I remember how she looked at the picture, did a double take, and then asked, "Bryan, I'm curious why you want this in your bedroom?"

I grinned and replied: "It makes me feel good."

To her credit she just nodded and smiled and didn't immediately sign me up for analysis. Much later she told me she knew I was gay even before I put up the photo. She let me keep the picture until the crush was over. That episode stayed with me and taught me something. It's clear my fondness for dark-haired, broad-shouldered men goes way back. And I also realize I don't need to be afraid of who I am or what I want.

Email: ilikebryan@gmail.com
Web: www.bryanthompsondesign.com

My Coming Out: Christopher Bram

October 11, 2006

Christopher Bram’s most beloved novel, Father of Frankenstein, was developed into the hit film, Gods and Monsters, starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. His newest book, Exiles in America was released in September from William Morrow.

I went to the College of William and Mary, where I regularly fell in love with men but did not think of myself as gay. This was in the early Seventies, when people still claimed same-sex desire was a phase all teenagers went through. Also, I was an ROTC scholarship student, which meant I owed the army four years after graduation. I couldn't afford to call a rose a rose.

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My Coming Out: Jesse Brune

October 11, 2006

Jesse Brune is a trainer at Sky Sport and Spa, the gym-to-the stars run by Jackie Warner and featured on Bravo’s “Work Out.” Brune also runs a healthy food delivery service called, “Jesse Delivers…”

When I told my sister, she looked at me with a grin and said: "Yeah, I already know.... I read your journal..."

She’s 23, and considered a local celebrity in Seattle's gay community. Everything she learned in life she picked up from drag queens and gay men. She identifies with them better than most other people.

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My Coming Out: Dennis Hensley

October 11, 2006

Dennis Hensley is a regular contributor to OUTzonetv.com. He is also the author of Misadventures in The (213), a novel, and Screening Party. He hosts a weekly radio show on Twist Radio (radiowithatwist.com).

“Joey Lawrence blew my cover: A coming out story.”

Though I’m happy to say I never felt particularly tortured about being gay, I did wait until the last possible moment to tell my family. I’m sure they already had some idea. I was into pop culture and theater in the same way my older brothers were into hunting and sports.

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My Coming Out: Rachel Kramer Bussel

October 11, 2006

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a sex columnist (the “Lusty Lady” column for the Village Voice) and erotica author. Her most recent collection, Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists was just published by Cleis Press. Visit her online here.

In a rather brash, confrontation style that now makes me cringe to recall, I came out as bisexual to my parents via the very 90s, very passive-aggressive form known as the ‘zine. As in, I mailed my little ‘zine (named “I'm Not Waiting,” after a Sleater-Kinney song), to them and waited to see what they'd say. Which turned out to be not much.

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My Coming Out: Robert Best

October 11, 2006

Robert Best is an alumni of "Project Runway 3." Before the show he was Principal Designer at Mattel working for Barbie Collectibles. After being auf’ed he returned to home to Los Angeles and to his job at Mattel, only with a hell of a lot more fans.

It's not like I didn't know. It's just that at one point, I realized how much fun the sex was.

I'd been living with my sister in New York (the very same -- my gorgeous sister -- who was featured on an episode of “Project Runway”). So I finally was like, "Oh God, I gotta tell her." And I did, and she was like ,"Duh."

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My Coming Out: Alexander Chee

October 11, 2006

Alexander Chee is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Edinburgh. His second novel, The Queen of the Night, is forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin in 2007.

I wrote a play in high school while I was closeted. The play was about coming out, and dealt with two male roommates at college, one gay, and one straight. I wrote it the fall I was sixteen, after having spent the summer hiding my sexuality from my openly gay roommate at Georgetown University's summer session for high school juniors.

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My Coming Out: Perry Brass

October 11, 2006

Perry Brass is the author of fiction (Warlock, The Substance of God) and non-fiction (How to Survive Your Own Gay Life). He regularly muses about art, literature and politics at perrybrass.com.

It was my first job in New York, as a messenger for a small graphic arts studio located in the East 50s, off Lexington Avenue. It was 1966. I was nineteen and pretty much unmistakably gay.

The “boys” in the bullpen, young working-class lads trying defensively to squeeze into the always suspect, high-tension advertising world referred to me as “the faggot.” I got even by dropping their ruling pens into cans of rubber cement.

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My Coming Out: Blair Fell

October 11, 2006

Blair Fell is a regular contributor to BravoTV.com, and an award-winning playwright. His credits include "Naked Will" and "Burning Habits: The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun."

Probably my favorite coming out story -- since there are so many -- involves my mom.

When I first told her I was queer, I was 24 years old and had just entered into my first real relationship. This news, my mom did not take well. She cried, she gnashed her teeth, she wondered out loud what she did wrong. In other words, her reaction was typical.

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My Coming Out: Daniel Vosovic

October 11, 2006

Daniel V is a regular contributor to OUTzonetv.com, BravoTV.com, and an alumni of "Project Runway 2."

I know that during Season 2 of "Project Runway," a bit of my coming out story was shown to the world. But I’d like to delve a bit further for those of you still wanting to share with everyone who you really are, and for those of you trying to understand those that already have.

I grew up in a small town in west Michigan, the only son in an amazing family that included my loving parents, my insanely hilarious older sister and the occasional odd stray dog or cat. I was a sensitive child who cried for hugs (or so my mother tells me), I loved art class more than any other and throughout grade school my best friends were always girls. I spent my afternoons in gymnastics and could really care less about missing a football game, I had faggot sneered at me more than I care to remember, pushed against more than a few lockers, and actually got jumped when I was 17.

To read his full coming out story, visit his blog HERE.

My Coming Out: Jackie Warner

October 11, 2006

Jackie Warner is the owner-extraordinaire of Sky Sport and Spa, as well as the star of Bravo's hit series, "Work Out." Her coming out story is an excerpt from a longer interview she just finished with OUTzone's Andy Cohen. You can read the entire interview here.

I came out at 21 when I had a serious girlfriend for first time and I was in love. I was not living with my parents. People ask me when to come out and I say that you should come out when you are in a safe environment, when you're not reliant on a parent who may reject you.

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Tug James: Bodybuilding Collect-o-Decorator

October 09, 2006

Bryan Thompson writes a regular Design blog for Bravotv.com. But he's the coolest guy in San Diego and so we've stolen this story from him (and Bravo!) for OUTzone. Maybe it's the bodybuilding picture, or maybe it's just that Bryan is such a funny writer. Mostly it's because we think he's introducing us to a person that's worth reading about. A man named Tug ... read on. --The Editors

When people meet my friend Tug James, right away they notice his muscles. They're huge. He has massive biceps, bulging pecs and a tiny waist. Think "Incredible Hulk" without all the green.

I always smile when I see people feeling intimidated by him. They judge him by his looks, thinking he's bound to be gruff and mean. But the opposite is true. Tug is the biggest softie you'll ever meet. He's outgoing, generous and cries at movies. His favorite show is "The Golden Girls" and he does a great Cher, with everything from the voice to the hair flip down pat.

He's also a great artist. The man can paint anything -- from landscapes to figures to funny cartoons. If it sounds like I'm in awe ... I am.

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