the time that glenn howerton was in a gay period-piece play about crossdressing
so awhile back i was poking around glenn howerton's wikipedia looking for movies and such that i might have missed, and i noticed it had a small theatrical section listed. this was never something i'd given much thought in the past, but on this particular occasion i was so hard-up for new Glontent that i decided to see what i could find about the three plays listed there, because i'd never seen anyone else have much luck with that and i love a good internet scavenger hunt. walk with me.
compleat female stage beauty caught my eye right away-- the title of the play itself is interesting, and i happened to know already that the most famous real-life duke of buckingham was the lover of king james. so of course i went delving...
and what should i find but the entire playscript for compleat female stage beauty, For Free, on archive dot org? anyone on earth can rent it and read it for an hour at a time, or for 14 days if you want to really take your time with it. i have to assume that this is NOT common knowledge among sunny fans (or anyone else), as the archive upload only has 99 views at the time of making this post.
to give a VERY succinct summary of what the play is about-- in the 1660s, during the english restoration, women were allowed to act professionally onstage for the first time in english history. this caused problems for the male actors who had previously made their careers playing female characters, such as edward kynaston, around whom the play centers. outside of his acting career, kynaston is a gay man, and he's in a romantic entanglement with george villiars, the duke of buckingham (NOT the same duke of buckingham who was fucking king james-- that was this villiars' dad. we love gay fathers and their gay sons!) kynaston struggles to find his place in a changing social landscape where it seems as though his talents are no longer needed or wanted.
before getting into the script proper, the book has some information about notable early productions of the play. this is great because it pins down a lot of details about glenn's involvement in the show that wikipedia left unanswered, but there's also an unexpected sunny crossover here-- in an even EARLIER production, the lead role was played by david hornsby!
(i also learned over the course of my deep dive on this that glenn's costar, lead actor brandon demery, was a fellow member of glenn's graduating juilliard group!)
things don't end well for kynaston and villiars, but still, the onstage relationship between the two is both electrifying and heartbreaking as it changes over the course of the show.
now, this WOULD be where i would include cast pictures or footage or any kind of photos of glenn in this show... but if any such material exists, it's not publicly available. i went so far as to email the publicity and outreach coordinator for the theater that hosted glenn's production of this show to ask if they had any archived materials, but she told me that they didn't.
but this production took place in october of 2000, meaning it was pre-that 80s show, meaning we can all sit and think about how a glenn that looked like This was acting in a gay period piece about crossdressing and gender roles and the mystery of human sexuality. dudes rock.
a bit of a disappointing note to end on, i know, but i really wanted to talk about this play and share it with people!! it's a super interesting and overlooked part of glenn's early career, but also i think the script is fascinating and very well-written in its own right. i definitely encourage yall to check it out on the internet archive if you're interested-- again, it's literally free!
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ok alien stage fans dont hate me for what im about to say im just throwing the IDEA out there okay. but just listen
you know how we have these two promo images of ivan and till?
("observation" and "decision" by vivinos)
paralleling their young selves and their current selves. young ivan sits with till and happily watches him sing, older ivan stares more seriously at till as they're about to enter the contest, having just made some sort of decision (we don't know what exactly that means yet. to lose? to not compete? to tie? to... win? given his convo with sua that might be the "nicer" option in his mind)
and now the promo art for round 6 dropped, "cure"
its OBVIOUSLY playing on paralleling these shots again. this time it seems to be after till got punished and is asleep or unconscious (or maybe he just has his eyes closed, but i dont think hes awake- he's not the type to be so chill about the face touching)
what if... its also meant to parallel a "future" shot? just like the previous two?
if till ends up dying this round (SAD!) we could end up seeing the second half of it. with ivan's hand on till's corpse. but this is pure conjecture, not super likely. im just saying is all.
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