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Becoming Wilkinson
Becoming Wilkinson episodes
- Meet Terry Ray... actor, writer, playwright, producer-director & managing director of Palm Springs' new gay theatre- "The Bent Theatre"! Be sure to see his two plays returning in February: "The LINCOLN DEBATE" (was Abe gay?) and "Electricity".
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In the words of Terry Ray:
"I can't remember not wanting to be an actor. To be fair, I can barely remember having hair, but still. It's a passion I've fought hard to nurture and a dream I've never given up on, even when it defied all odds and all logic... and believe me, it usually did...
Then one day I decided to quit waiting for the phone to ring for that one line as the theater manager on 7th HEAVEN (of course I used an example that I booked) and create my own opportunities by adding the hyphenates writer-producer to the acting thang. I teamed with Larry LaFond and we amazingly hit a home run our first time at bat (look at me with the sports metaphors) with the incredibly successful little short film GAYDAR, which was in over 120 film festivals, won a ton of awards and was recently named by California Independent Film Festival as one of the 20 Best Comedy Short Films of all time. Larry and I also made a short film called THE COST OF LIVING, a way too timely comedy about life after global co-starring Jim J. Bullock, Molly Hagan & Greg Mullavey. (More film festivals and awards).
I'm the creator, writer and star of HERE TV's first original sitcom FROM HERE ON OUT (available on Amazon Prime) with Juliet Mills as well as the co-creator-writer-producer-star (sharing that "co" with Wendy Michaels) of MY SISTER IS SO GAY (Amazon Prime) with Loni Anderson as my mother. I got to co-star in 5 seasons of Michael Vaccaro's star-studded comedy CHILD OF THE 70s. I wrote and co-created the game show MODD COUPLES now playing on Hulu, I co-wrote the 2017 TV movie LOVE UNPLUGGED. My new show, TV THERAPY features a different classic TV character (played once again by the original actor) in a therapy session today (with me as the doctor) with all the issue they would currently have...
Since 2016 I've been starring in ELECTRICITY (my debut as a playwright)....Mel England as my co-star we became the longest running play in Palm Springs, performing in two venues at the same time: as an immersive theater experience inside a real Palm Springs hotel room and also on stage as Oscar's Bar & Cabaret Theater and then moving to The Desert Rose Playhouse as our final venue and we prepare for an Off-Broadway run.
I'm the first instructor at the famed Actor's Lab's new Palm Springs branch of their acting school. Maybe my master plan is starting to work"!
-Terry Ray
Epilogue: Terry's latest play is THE LINCOLN DEBATE which explores the possibility that Lincoln was actually gay. It premiered in Palm Springs in December 2022 and will be returning in the Spring of 2023 at The Bent Theatre- Palm Spring's newest and only gay theatre. Terry is also the managing director of The Bent.
See Terry's full bio and other fun info at: http://www.terryray.tv
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]27 min - Rob Rosen knows a lot about gay love and sex and he's written prolifically about the topic! He's written a ton of gay novels and stories and he's edited many gay erotic anthologies. You might say he's popping out gay all over!
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Rob Rosen is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author/editor/anthologist.
He's the author of:
Sparkle: The Queerest Book You'll Ever Love
Divas Las Vegas
Hot Lava
Southern Fried
Queerwolf
Vamp
Queens of the Apocalypse
Creature Comfort
Fate
Midlife Crisis
Fierce
And God Belched
Mary, Queen of Scotch
Ted of the d'Urbervilles
Sort of Dead
Genie in a Vodka Bottle
Bobby Ray Breaks the Universe.
His short stories have appeared in more than 200 anthologies.
You can read some of his best ones in:
Short Spurts
Short Spurts 2
Short Spurts 3
He is also the editor of:
Lust in Time: Erotic Romance Through the Ages
Men of the Manor
Best Gay Erotica 2015
Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Please visit him at www.therobrosen.com
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]24 min - Alex Price will be in two different stage productions in Feb-Mar, 2023. In "The Lincoln Debate", he plays Joshua Speed-Lincoln's lover ( Oops) I mean "Very Close Friend". Abe wasn't gay", you might be thinking. You might want to consider the facts!
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Alex Price is new to Palm Springs after moving here from the East coast in 2021.
His life has taken him from the sticks of Tennessee, to Washington DC, a brief detour in Wuhan, China (ever heard of it?), and finally to the West coast and the Coachella Valley. A government bureaucrat during the day, Alex has rekindled his love of acting and can be found performing in two different, local stage productions.
Check him out in The Bent’s production of THE LINCOLN DEBATE at the Palm Springs Cultural Center in February 2023 as well as Desert Theatreworks’ production of THE MOUSETRAP in February and March.
You can find Alex at www.thealexprice.com or through his Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/xand83/
Find tickets to THE MOUSETRAP: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36400/
Find tickets for The LINCOLN DEBATE at
The Bent Theatre: https://www.thebent.org
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]38 min - Jason Reale's latest stage role has him playing Abraham Lincoln in "The Lincoln Debate". Jason is gay. Is it possible that Lincoln was, too?
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Jason Reale is a recent transplant from NYC where he was a director of design for a global branding agency.
At the age of thirty he decided to change up his life, quit his job and rediscover his passion for acting by studying the Hagen technique at HB Studio. It was there where he was able to start to unravel the facade he had built up over the years and reawaken his creative spark.
Since moving to Palm Springs he has started to find his people through the plays he has been cast in. His most recent play, The Lincoln Debate by Terry Ray, poses the questions of Lincolns sexuality. This play has been his most challenging role to date and probably the role that has helped him grow the most.
It doesn't hurt that he shares a lot in common with the sixteenth president, besides just the beard.
More info and to contact Jason: http://jasonreale.com/
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]31 min - "Anything is possible in Palm Springs"! Claudia Ried and Alan Kraemer have proven this to be true by becoming producers and entertainers in this next chapter of their lives!
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Alan Kraemer and Claudia Ried
After careers in the tech industry and the fashion industry respectively, Alan Kraemer and Claudia Ried have reinvented themselves in the desert as producers and entertainers. On this show they tell us about their various ventures and adventures.
Links:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@PalmSpringsPointofView
Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/PSPOV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pspov1938/
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]35 min - Is it possible that finding out you're HIV positive could change one's life for the BETTER? Sometimes it takes a major event to cause a man to get it all together.... The journey of Kevin. Part 2.
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Kevin has travelled extensively throughout the USA. After getting kicked out of his home as a teen, he had many harrowing adventures that seemed to bring him to various forks in the road. But somehow, he beat the odds and was able to choose the path away from certain destruction.
But it wasn't until he tested positive for HIV that it all came together and he was able to settle down, complete his education, get married and find purpose in life doing a job that he loves. And all the previous challenges meshed together to make him the man he is today.
It took many round about ways to get places but eventually always made it!
He currently resides in NYC with his husband and he's working as a nurse in a NYC hospital.
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]27 min - The remarkable journey of Kevin (Part 1). Kicked out as a teen. On his own in the desert without food or money. And yet he was guided internally and somehow made the right choices at many forks in the road...
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Kevin has travelled extensively throughout the USA. After getting kicked out of his home as a teen, he had many harrowing adventures that seemed to bring him to various forks in the road. But somehow, he beat the odds and was able to choose the path away from certain destruction.
In other words, he takes many round about ways to get places but eventually always makes it!
He currently resides in NYC with his husband and he's working as a nurse at a NYC hospital.
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2023
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]35 min - Adam Ross was in the process of coming out as gay to his mother. She accepted him and told him that she loved him. Then she said, "Adam, since we're being honest, I have a secret, too..."
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Adam Ross is a writer, a three-time Moth StorySLAM winner, and a three-time Moth GrandSLAM performer. His stories have been featured on The Moth Podcast and the Bawdy Storytelling Podcast. He has performed at curated storytelling shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Chicago and New York City, including Strong Words, GatherNYC, OUTspoken, This Much is True, Talk Therapy, Bawdy Storytelling, and Better Luck Next Time.
In addition to Adam’s creative projects, Adam has spent the last two-decades working for technology companies in various legal and business capacities, where he has almost mastered the art of cat-herding. Though he doesn’t enjoy long walks on the beach, Adam does enjoy being a part-time science nerd, political junkie, and gay rights rabble-rouser.
Adam has been writing both fiction and nonfiction stories since he and his nerdy friends started ditching recess in the 4th grade to create short plays and home movies. He is currently producing a short film dramatization of his shocking “Since We’re Being Honest” story.https://adamross.me/
http://Twitter.com/adamross
http://Instagram.com/adam.ross.stories
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2022
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]39 min - Shawn Smith's involvement in an emerging gay college campus organization began a path of LGBT activism, advocacy, and community-building as the Gay Rights Movement began to coalesce in the mid-70's across America.
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Shawn Smith shares his stories of coming out in the rural midwest.
His involvement in an emerging Gay college campus organization began a path of LGBT activism, advocacy, and community-building as the Gay Rights Movement began to coalesce in the mid-70's across America.
Lured by the freedom and anonymity of big city life, Shawn shares his adventures along the road to freedom of sexual expression.
A writer and storyteller by trade, he's now quasi-retired and slacking poolside: A dirty old man enjoying the free and Fabulously Gay life that Palm Springs has to offer.
Contact Shawn at: [email protected]
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2022
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]41 min - Aaron Jay Young is an amazing Portrait Photographer who shares his journey in authentically capturing his subject's pain, joy and vulnerability in his work.
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Aaron Jay Young grew up in a very conservative, religious home in Pennsylvania.
He escaped at age 19 and he's spent his adult life on a journey of growth and self-discovery. Today he's an amazing portrait photographer based in LA and Palm Springs. I'm proud to have had the chance to get to know and interview this beautiful soul.
In Aaron's own words:
"My work is my passion. It is a culmination of all my life experiences - the pain, the trauma, the work I’ve done to find forgiveness, love, and compassion - not just for myself but for others. The process allows me to see other people, their pain, their joy, their vulnerability, and capture it authentically. It is with my camera that I take this journey; through self-portraits and through portraiture of others.It’s a very intimate experience; when a subject is in front of me, whether it’s for 30 seconds, or much longer. There is an undeniable connection that is established. We exchange a sense of trust. All other distractions fall away and it is my sole purpose to see them and to capture those moments of truth.
Self-portraits are a way for me to expose not only my own inner world, but the inner world of others; to capture emotional states that are not encouraged to be shown in our society. Yet this is the very essence of what everyone can relate to throughout their own moments in life".
Aaron Jay YoungWeb: https://www.aaronjayyoung.com
Email: [email protected]
Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2022
Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.
To contact Wilkinson- email him at [email protected]43 min
About Becoming Wilkinson
From the publisher's feed
When I started this podcast, I thought it would be the story of my journey from married man with three sons, involved in ministry in the NW, to my current life as a gay man in Palm Springs, CA. I'd…
weave in interesting interviews with amazing people whom I've met along the way. But as the podcast has evolved, I realized that interacting and hearing other people's stories has changed me. The Universe always sends me just the right person at just the right time to guide me along my own journey of "Becoming". Join me as I have conversations with these fascinating people and share this journey with you.