Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-director-producer Ellen Geer who is the Producing Artistic Director of one of Dennis's favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topange Canyon. Dennis has been going to see plays at the outdoor amphitheater since the early 90's and has seen Ellen perform in scores of shows there as well as seeing just as many that she directed and produced. This season, she co-directed the play Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Galsworthy. The show, about a labor strike in rural Pennsylvania, was written in the early 1900's but feels like it could have been written in 2025. The wealthy board of directors feel like the today's financially insatiable oligarchs and the workers are dealing with the same type of injustices that workers face today. Ellen talks about why she chose Strife for this "Season of Resilience," her own history as an activist and the pleasure of co-directing with her daughter Willow Geer. She also discusses the rich history of her family and the property, which was acquired by her parents in the 1950's when her father, the actor Will Geer, was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and the entire family was ostracized from Hollywood and their Santa Monica community. In the 1950's-60's, the Botanicum property became a safe place for blacklisted artists to seek refuge and practice their craft. In the 1970's, after Will Geer found fame as Grandpa Walton on The Waltons, the place officially opened to the public as The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. Ellen talks about her favorite spot on the property, her encounters with animals like bears, deer, mountain lions and rattlesnakes and the challenges of doing theater in such a unique outdoor place. Other topics include: why her father loved plants, losing all her friends as a child because of the blacklist, Jimmy Stewart being sweet to her on The Jimmy Stewart Show, how the current resistance movement could use some good folk songs, and that time her father taught her that reading Shakespeare could be just as enlightening as going to therapy.

www.theatricum.com

A few weeks back, Dennis was invited to moderate a Queer Authors Panel at the first-ever Pride Live Hollywood festival. The panel was so fun, interesting and, in a few instances, downright dishy, that Dennis thought it would make a great podcast. The authors featured are Nancy Beverly (Shelby’s Vacation), Curtis Chin, (Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant), Jim Colucci (Golden Girls Forever), Frank DeCaro (Disco: Music, Movies, and Mania Under the Mirror Ball), Alonso Duralde, (Hollywood Pride), Rasheed Newson, (My Government Means to Kill Me), Mark B. Perry (And Introducing Dexter Gaines) and Bruce Vilanch (It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time). In addition to talking about their individual books and what inspired them to write them, the authors share stories about the books that rocked their worlds as readers and talk about what it means to them to finally have their precious babies out in the world.

Dennis is joined via Zoom from Los Angeles by Juan Pablo Di Pace, the writer, co-director and star of the new film Before We Forget. The film is about an Argentinian film director in his 40s named Matias (played by Di Pace) who's struggling to finish a movie he's making based on his first love, 25 years ago, when he was a student at an international boarding school in Northern Italy. The movie is inspired by Juan Pablo's own experience at the same school where they shot the film, the United World College in Duino, Italy. Juan Pablo talks about the challenges he faced getting the film made, finding the perfect actor to play himself at 17, getting permission from his old school to shoot there and co-directing with his friend since childhood, Andrés Pepe Estrada who actually came to visit Juan Pablo when he was at the boarding school and is a character in the film. Juan Pablo also talks about one of the central themes of the film; that great loves from our younger closeted lives can leave marks that impact us well into adulthood. Other topics include: landing TV icon Norman Lear as an executive producer on the film, going almost all the way on Dancing With the Stars, appearing in Mamma Mia, playing an intense Marriage Story-like argument scene in the film The Mattachine Family, why it was important for him to be out in his career, the sneaky voyeuristic quality of VHS footage, getting his mother to play his mother on screen, playing Jesus Christ in the TV movie AD and shooting the crucifixion scene on Day 2 and the important role delusion plays where you're trying to make your creative dreams come true.

www.beforeweforgetmovie.com

Dennis is joined via Zoom by his dance class friend and rising star, writer-director-actor Leah McKendrick to talk about her breakout comedy from last year Scrambled as well as this month's reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which she has a story credit on. Leah talks about how Scrambled was inspired by her own journey of freezing her eggs as single woman in her 30's, how she was able to get the film made, the challenge of wearing so many hats on the project and how audiences would often want to hold and comfort her after seeing the movie. She also talks about her realization that if she wanted her Hollywood dreams to come true that she had to start creating her own projects. She also talks about bursting into tears when she saw Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar on the set of Last Summer because she was such a superfan of the original. Other topics include: writing Harry Shum Jr. a love letter to ask him to appear as "the one who got away" in Scrambled, how she was able to score Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club" for the film before it was everywhere, writing and performing scenes featuring bad sex, being a Britney-obsessed pop girlie through and through and falling in love with a man she met on Hinge, getting engaged and becoming the kind of wedding-obsessed woman she made fun of in Scrambled.

Dennis is joined via Zoom by two of the men behind his favorite indie of the year so far Rent Free, co-writer and director Fernando Andrès and actor-producer Jacob Roberts. The film is about two queer, down-on-their-luck best friends Ben (Roberts) and Jordan (played by David Trevino) who hatch a plan to live rent free for a year in Austin, Texas--on friends' sofas or whatever they can fanagle--while they save up to move to New York City to pursue their dreams. Fernando talks about his goal of making a buddy comedy set in a bleak contemporary economic landscape focusing on a kind of queer friendship that's very familiar to him but underexplored in cinema. Jacob talks about the finding the comedy in cringey hookup scenes, and recalls shooting a key emotional scene with Austin-based actor Bill Wise as Jacob's eccentric and empathetic father. Other topics include: Jacob writing and appearing in several iconic Hasty Pudding musical shows while at Harvard, Fernando being mentored by Austin-based filmmaking legend Richard Linklater, the upside of taking a film from the idea phase all the way through production and distribution in a relatively short period of time, what it's like to live in Austin post-tech boom and why they made one of the most obnoxious characters in the movie a gay "Facebook Guy with a good salary."

Just as we're hitting the 10th Anniversary of Federal Marriage Equality in the US, Dennis is joined via Zoom by Frankie Frankeny, the driving creative force behind the gorgeous and comprehensive new coffee table book Love: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality. Frankie recalls how she first became passionate about the cause of marriage equality decades ago, doing entensive research for the book and discovering stories she never knew before and her hope that the book will be available in schools so queer kids can learn their history in a way that her generation never did. She also talks about contributing her own photos to the book and her hopes that, aesthetically speaking, the book will be something two lesbians in Tennessee or the chic designer Tom Ford would be proud to put on their coffee table. Other topics include: the pressure LGBT couples involved in court cases feel to be perfect and the stress that puts on a relationship, attorney Evan Wolfson's emotional Harvard thesis on the topic, boundary-pushing straight allies like Phil Donahue, Joe Biden and Gavin Newsom, her successful career as a cookbook photographer and why she loves that work and coming out for the first time as a kid to her beloved pet dachshund by saying, "I’m going to have a wife one day."

www.justmarried.us

Dennis is joined via Zoom from Portugal by former U.K. boxing manager Kellie Maloney to discuss the new documentary about Kellie's life and transition Knockout Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story. The film, which is now available on VOD, documents her previous life as successful boxing promoter Frank Maloney through her transition to Kellie in 2014 and its aftermath. Kellie talks about falling in love with boxing as a child, taking Lennox Lewis all the way to the Heavyweight Champion, how the physicality of boxing allowed her to vent the stress she was feeling inside and that time Frank the promoter experienced the petty, bullying side of Donald Trump. Kellie also talks about how in her dreams, she's always been female, the back-to-back tragic losses that happened in her life that led to her finally deciding to be true to herself and the decision to go on the Big Brother reality show just eight weeks after coming out publicly as trans. Other topics include: her most surprising supporters, the people close to her who dropped her like a brick, staring with envy at her ex-wife Tracy when she would get ready to go out, the difference between the British press and the American press, having a row with Leslie Jordan in the U.K. Big Brother house then later becoming friends, the full frontal moment in the documentary she tried to have cut, doing female breast exercises when he was alone in the gym then switching back to sparring exercises when someone walked in and the immense relief she felt after she transitioned when she was finally able to face the world as herself.

In this special Tonys week episode, Dennis is joined via Zoom by Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller to discuss his book Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir, which documents his journey from a childhood of family dysfunction and always feeling like an outsider to thriving as a Broadway producer with four Best Musical Tonys to his credit (Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton). Jeffrey talks about why he decided to write the book, the elementary school teacher who saw what was special in him, always having the self belief to take big swings and confessing his love to his college best friend, who happened to be future Broadway composer Andrew Lippa. He also recalls an early workshop of Tik Tik...Boom! where he was exposed to the work of Jonathan Larson for the first time. He was so knocked out he wrote Larson a long, passionate letter, which led to Seller producing Rent five or so years later. He recalls being similarly knocked out by Lin-Manuel Miranda's talent at an early workshop of In the Heights. Other topics include: the current renaissance of new musicals on Broadway, why he chose to write so frankly about sex in his book, that time his process server father decided he wanted to become a circus clown, what it was like to start making really good money after growing up poor in a neighborhood of Detroit known as "Cardboard Village," the year his underdog puppet musical Avenue Q beat out Wicked for Best Musical, what Hamilton represents during the second Trump administration, Jonathan Larson's tragic and untimely death just as Rent was about to explode on the scene, what Larson's parents told him on the night after they lost their son and much, much more.

Dennis is joined by his friends and past podcast guests Frank DeCaro and Jim Colucci to talk about a brand new arts festival they are co-programming. It's called Pride Live! Hollywood and it takes place June 11th through the 29th at various venues in Hollywood. JIm and Frank talk about the various events on the agenda, including a Norman Lear tribute, a screening and party of Saturday Night Fever with director John Badham and actress Donna Pescow attending, a Golden Girls tribute, the Where The Bears Are documentary A Big Fat Hairy Hit. a Queer as Folk cast reunion as well as screenings of the films The World According to Allee Willis, Relax, It’s Just Sex, The Big Johnson, The Grotto, Unicorn and the Village People musical Can’t Stop the Music. Other topics include: feeling a call to fill the hole left by Outfest, the surprising number of guests who said yes, why queer joy is a radical act, the pros and cons of nostalgia and memorabilia collecting, scoring festive outfits on sale at Mr. Turk and their hopes that the fest will be so successful that they will both become insufferable a-holes by Year Three.

(www.pridelivehollywood.com)

Dennis is joined via Zoom by playwright Tom Jacobson whose latest play Tasty Little Rabbit is currently showing at the Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles. The play tells the true story of a 1936 Fascist Italian investigation of pornography charges in Taormina, Sicily. This artistic prosecution uncovers a much darker secret of a 1890s love triangle between photographer Wilhelm Von Gloeden, an a 18 year-old Sicilian boy and a mysterious Irish poet. Tom talks about how he first learned of the true story, visiting Sicily as part of his research, the riveting "Kissing Contest" scene at the play's center and why the story is so relevant to today. He also talks about how he's been able to be so productive as a playwright while working a day job as a fundraiser for organizations like the Natural History Museum, LACMA and the Los Angeles Zoo. Other topics include: falling in love with theater as a kid in Oklahoma, using a New York-based alias to get his breakthrough play Cyberqueer produced in Los Angeles, writing plays to upset his mother, being told he's "too old to write for TV" at the age of 33, meeting his husband of 30 years on a blind date and why he loves being a part of the LA theater community.