Frontmezzjunkies reports: Tony Award Winner J Harrison Ghee to Star in Roger Q. Mason’s Night Cities – Monday, July 14 at Cherry Grove, Fire Island
J Harrison Ghee (Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award winner and Grammy Award-nominee for Some Like It Hot on Broadway) will star in the staged reading of Night Cites, written by acclaimed Black Filipinx playwright and Kilroys List honoree Roger Q. Mason. The reading is being presented as part of the Cherry Picked new play reading series with National Queer Theater on Monday, July 14 at 6pm at The Cherry Grove Community House & Theater (180 Bayview Walk, Cherry Grove, NY, 11782) in Fire Island. Admission is FREE with RSVP, www.nationalqueertheater.org/cherrypicked.
A young Bayard Rustin—before Civil Rights Movement fame—must choose between his private desires as a queer Black man and his public calling as an agent of social justice and civic change. Set against the vibrant labor movement of the 1930s and 40s, this piece embraces the musicality, dream imagery, and liberation of jazz playwriting to explore one man’s quest for complex humanity in a world that limits who we are to how we can be used for the good of others.
The reading will be directed by Karl Hawkins (A.R.T./New York’s boy meets boy meets girl) and feature J Harrison Ghee (Broadway’s Some Like It Hot), Kalonjee Gallimore (Broadway’s A Beautiful Noise), Ashton Muñiz (Broadway’s The Inheritance) and Kamal Sehrawy (NYTW’s What in the Actual F__k?) with Stage Directions by Geoff Hill.
Tony Award and Grammy Award winner J. Harrison Ghee (they/them) made history as the first nonbinary actor to win in a leading individual performance category for creating the role as “Daphne/Jerry” in Some Like It Hot, which also garnered them Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Also on Broadway, Ghee starred as “Lola” in Kinky Boots, created the role of “Andre Mayhem” in Mrs. Doubtfire, and co-starred opposite Harry Connick, Jr. as “Johnny Hooker” in The Sting. Ghee captured audiences as “The Lady Chablis” in the musical premiere of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. On television, Ghee was selected to play the title role in “Robyn’s Story” on the hit FOX anthology series “Accused” (dir. Billy Porter), starred as “Kwame” in Netflix’s “Raising Dion,” and guest-starred on HBO’s “High Maintenance“. A Fayetteville, North Carolina native, Ghee moved to New York City to study at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and began their professional career working at Tokyo Disney, on cruise ships, and national tours. They live by the mantra, “You have to free yourself to see yourself,” with the hope of inspiring people to dream big and to chase those dreams. An outspoken advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, Ghee has been involved with many organizations, including Broadway Cares, GLAAD, and God’s Love We Deliver, among others. Ghee hopes to create roles and conversations that reach beyond what was and into a realm of infinite possibilities. www.jharrisonghee.com
Roger Q. Mason (Playwright) (they/them) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator who satirizes and revises history to disrupt the biases that separate rather than unite us. Their playwriting has appeared on Broadway, Off/Off-Off-Broadway, and regionally. Their recent productions have garnered five Barrymore Award nominations in Philadelphia, a Jeff Award Recommendation in Chicago, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s prestigious Datebook Pick. Mason’s World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris, and Michael R. Jackson.” They received 2024’s Playwrights’ Center McKnight National Playwright Commission, the inaugural Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Grant Award, a Hermitage Residency, a Lucille Lortel commission, a Kilroys List nod, and the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award. Mason is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and an alum of the Ma-Yi’s Writing Lab, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, the Fire This Time Festival, and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. They currently produce a memoir/cooking segment on Instagram called Cooking with Q: A Playwright’s Guide to Telling My Truth. Previously, they co-hosted the podcast “Sister Roger’s Gayborhood” and hosted This Way Out Radio’s “Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage“. As an educator, Mason has served as a mentor for Lambda Literary, Workshop Theatre, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, National Queer Theater’s New Visions Fellowship with the Dramatists Guild of America and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are currently on faculty at CalArts. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. Instagram: @rogerq.mason
Karl Hawkins (Director) (pronoun fluid) is a nonbinary, Black, and queer multi-hyphenate theatre practitioner and “experience architect” based in NYC whose ethos is rooted in liberation and visibility. Credits (selected): Acting: Richard III (Soho Shakespeare Company), District Merchants (New Jewish Theatre) Directing: Can The Peruvian Speak? (David Geffen School of Drama at Yale/Yale Cabaret), boy meets boy meets girl (A.R.T Theatres/NYC), Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare Project of Alabama) Playwriting: we are all cut from the same cloth, glorious (or, The Lake Pontchartrain Play) and (reaching for) liberation. BFA Acting: Southeast Missouri State. www.karljhawkins.com | IG: @littlekarl_
National Queer Theater is an innovative queer theater collective dedicated to celebrating the brilliance of generations of LGBTQ+ artists and providing a home for unheard storytellers and activists. Founded in 2018, National Queer Theater amplifies queer stories and experiences to increase visibility within the broader NYC community. By serving our elders, youth, and working professionals, NQT creates a more just future through radical and evocative theater experiences and free community classes. www.nationalqueertheater.org
Arts Project of Cherry Grove Founded in 1948, the Arts Project of Cherry Grove, Inc. (APCG) is the oldest known LGBTQ theater in America. APCG is a 501c3 community service organization dedicated to presenting the arts in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, New York, one of America’s most colorful communities. Our purpose is to promote global appreciation of the rich and creative history of Cherry Grove as a safe haven for the LGBTQ community and their allies. By learning about the Grove’s rich history, we can fully appreciate the space that many of us call home today.
