Billy Porter, the Tony Award-winning star of Broadway's Kinky Boots--which marks its 500th performance tonight--is a man of multiple talents. He released an album, Billy's Back on Broadway, in April, and next up, he'll premiere his new play at Primary Stages. While I Yet Live it has attracted quite a bit of top talent, including Emmy-winner S. Epatha Merkerson (Law and Order) and Tony winner Lillias White (The Life, Fela!, Chicago).
Porter's autobiographical play depicts coming of age in Pittsburgh surrounded by a group of strong-willed women. Tony nominee Sheryl Kaller (Mothers and Sons, Next Fall) directs a cast that also includes Kevyn Morrow, Larry Powell and Sharon Washington. The production is scheduled to run from September through November.
Kinky Boots represented many people's introduction to Porter, but he's been in show business for 20 years, and While I Yet Live is not the first autobiographical work he's created. In 2005 Porter performed his one-man show Ghetto Superstar at Joe's Pub, and Charles Isherwood of the New York Times called it a "roof-raising musical autobiography." No one who's seen Porter's performance as the splashy cross-dresser "Lola" in Kinky Boots could be surprised at the critic's observation: "Grief, rage and denial play their apportioned roles in his life story, too, as it is detailed in this unabashedly sentimental [earlier] show, but they ultimately take a back seat to righteous flamboyance."
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