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Interview
with Paul Oakley Stovall
by Gregg Shapiro, February
7, 2005
There is no
denying it. Paul Oakley Stovall is a modern day renaissance man. A singer,
a songwriter and an actor, Stovall has now turned his considerable talents
to playwriting. As Much As You Can, presented by Dog and Pony
Theatre Company at Raven Theater in Chicago, 6157 N. Clark, (773) 871-1195,
naturally mixes laughter and tears as it tells the story of Jesse (Kevin
Douglas), an African-American gay man who brings his Swedish male partner
Christian (Jeff Alba) home to his family in Hyde Park to attend the wedding
of his younger brother Tony (Osiris Khepera).
Also along
for the trip is Jesse’s best friend Nina (Monet Butler), an outrageous
and effervescent lesbian, who has the luxury of not being an immediate
family member; Jesse’s half-sister Ronnie (Angela Walsh), whose
relationship to the family is as complex as Jesse’s; and conservative
sister Evie (Inda Craig-Galvan), who surprises herself, as well as the
audience, by the end of the play. I spoke with Stovall while he was in
Chicago to attend the opening of the play.
AfterElton.com:
It’s been a couple of years since we last spoke. What have you been
doing since our 2003 interview?
Paul
Oakley Stovall: I have been living in NYC since May of 2003.
I’ve done Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at Second Stage
and at Berkeley Rep, Metamorphoses at Kansas City Rep and Hartford
Stage, Topdog/Underdog at Hartford Stage, and a new musical called
.22 Caliber Mouth at the Eugene O'Neill Conference, which is
gritty and Brechtian and pretty amazing. I just finished Big River
at Syracuse Stage, and I am currently in rehearsals for Dessa Rose,
the new Lynn Ahrens/Stephen Flaherty musical, directed by Graciela Daniele
and starring La Chanze, at Lincoln Center. I also shot a short film directed
by Tonya Pinkins (of Caroline, or Change) and I have
put together a new band that debuted at the Knitting Factory (in New York)
in mid-January. Oh, and I’ve been writing this play!
AE:
It sounds like you’ve been busy. I’m glad that you mentioned
the play, because in our previous interview, we talked about As Much
As You Can, which had been featured in (Chicago's gay theater company)
About Face Theater’s Festival of New Plays. In what ways would you
say that the play has evolved since then?
POS: Well, I cut forty pages (laughs)! And I streamlined
the story. In the first version, Jesse and Christian had just met. Now
they are a solid couple that has been together for two years, living together
for one. Current event have encouraged me to focus, well, not necessarily
on gay marriage, but on the meaning of marriage and commitment. What is
the family’s responsibility and opportunity when it comes to supporting
the love relationships of other family members?
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