Black Horizons; 3516; Billy Porter

Top Dog Underdog is Susan Laurie Parks moving drama about two brothers whose entangled lives revolve around a game of three -card money and it's coming to Pittsburgh City Theatre. Joining us tonight is no stranger to black horizons. He's one of the stars of Top Dog Underdog, Mr. Billy Porter. Welcome back home, Billy. How you doing, man? I'm great. It's a pleasure to see you again. Thank you so much. I know you don't remember it, but you've made two other appearances on this program once when you were a student at Kapper, and we look for these things because I really wanted to bring them out, man. I'm so glad you didn't find them. We're going to find them next time you back in town. And once when you had one on that talent show, what's the name of it? Oh, a little talent show called Star Search. Star Search, and you won, yeah, I regret it, man. The old Star Search would end, man. The original would end, man. I feel very old. What did you win, man? Best male vocalist. Oh, that's great. That's great. So what have you been doing since then? Oh, I've been living in New York, and living my life as an artist, and doing Broadway shows, and I had an album that came out in 1997, and I've done a few films, and you know, I've just been doing my things, right? I'm doing my things. Oh, boy,

me good. You know we're proud of you. That's it. Thank you very much. I'm just saying you do a lot of writing, too. I am doing a lot of writing. A few years ago, I discovered that I had this talent for writing stories, and so I went to UCLA in the screenwriting program, and I've been developing and writing, and I'm doing a residency at the public theater in New York City under the mentorship of George C. Wolf. Oh, wow. And I've been developing, you know, plays, and I'm writing a hip -hop soul musical, and I'm writing a one -person show, and you know, so it's interesting to sort of open up other creative things that you never knew you had. I want to talk about it one person showing just a minute, I know you're still developing it. Yes. But let's talk about the city theater and coming home to perform here. What's that like, man? I am so happy to be home, you know, I left about 14 years ago, and I have not been back to perform. I've been back to direct, I directed for Pittsburgh Musical Theater, I directed the production of the Wiz a few years ago. I came back

to my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon, to direct production of company a couple of years ago, but I've not been back to perform in a big way. And you came back to see my family. Well, of course. Of course, to see my family. So it's just been great to sort of be back and working on a play that is just so extraordinary. It really, really is extraordinary to speak such poetic poetry, you know, it's just, it's poetry, and it's really great. With one of the brothers, do you play? I play Booth. Okay. Now, I don't want to do all the exposition here, but you say it's just about everybody knows. Well, it's about two brothers, and sort of, I think the universal theme is when we abandon our children, they self -destruct. So it's a, it's an urban Greek tragedy, and the two brothers are named Lincoln and Booth. So what else do you need to know, right? If you don't know, you should try to figure it out. It should be too hard, right? City Theater has been welcoming for you to come back in. Oh, very much so.

Very much so. I called a couple of months ago, and you know, they were very warm and very generous, and it's been great. How do you like these? It's amazing. It's so great to sort of see them expand, because I've been around since they started, so I remember when they were in that little theater in the church, or a library, whatever it was. Well, it was a little building over in the other one, over in Oakland, before they moved to the church. And now they have this beautiful theater, and they have a black box theater, and all these rehearsal spaces, and costume spaces, and sets. It's just great. It's really great. Yeah, it's really great to be a part of it. I wonder about your perspective, having been away 14 years. You know, a lot of people here in Pittsburgh, there's nothing to do and know where to go. Our previous show that we did in the air last week, talked about the Onyx Alliance, keeping young black professionals here in the city, and often they say there's nothing socially happening. You've been away for 14 years. What's your position when you come back and look into the city? What do you think of Pittsburgh? I think Pittsburgh has grown tremendously. There's so much more to do than there was. You know, I live in New

York, so it's a skewed vision, because everything that there is to have ever in your life is in New York. Yeah, it's not a comparison. It's not a comparison, but you have to learn how to be where you are, and make the best of where you are. I just think it's great. I'm having a blast. That's great. Now, you talked about that one -person show on the Stan City Theatre is also interested in that. Yes, they have put my one -person show on their season for next year. I'm sort of in my fourth rewrite of it, I'm developing it some more, and I'm excited to do it. I'm excited to do it. How did you discover? You said you discovered you had this talent to write. I mean, as a singer, as a dancer, you've had an actor. You're an actor. You're one of these triple threat kinds of persons. So how did you realize you had this gift for Gap to put it on the printed page, too? Well, it came out of frustration, really. The impulse was being very frustrated by the market and being frustrated with what was available for black actors.

And I'm just not a person who complains and doesn't do anything about it, so I thought, well, you know, I may as well try to figure out how to do something about it and be a part of the change and be a part of the solution as opposed to just sitting back and complaining. So, you know, I put pen to paper or these days fingers to keyboard and I just started writing and stuff started coming out. It just flowed. It just started coming out. It was really a blessing. It was like, I had no idea, no idea. Yeah. It's a true testament when you really understand how to let go and let God do what He has planned for you in your life. But that's probably also part of your growth and maturation process, isn't it? Absolutely. It really, really is. It's another step for you. Absolutely. But, you know, my original plan and my original dream and, you know, as naive as it is, it's what we understand is I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be a star. I wanted to be a star.

And so often, because of that, we cut off other juices, you know, that in fact, sometimes actually turn out to be better than just, oh, I want to be a star. You want to own the original star search, you see the kinds of contracts these folks are getting now. I'm going to ask you just like they asked the old football players who used to earn $10 a game and see what the athletes earned in the day. Does it all make you jealous or is it odd that these people seem to get these big contracts and record, Ruben Stuttard and all these other people seem to just take off? I have my moment. I know the business. I've been in it long enough and I feel more, I feel sad and I feel sort of like the end of the journey. You're brilliant. It is. Yeah, the end of the journey is not what they profess. So sometimes it's a little bit difficult, but I'm happy for everybody and I'm glad to be where I am and I'm really, really blessed to be here. When it's

top dog open. We start performances March 4th and we won through April 4th. All right, it's going to be a great run. I hope everybody comes out there to see you, man. I hope so too. It's good to see you again. When you come back here again, we pulling the tape out of you, man, we're going to show it to you, okay? Okay. All right. Thanks a lot for being here. Great luck with the run of the show. Thank you. Top dog under dog opens Wednesday, March 10th at 8 p .m. and runs through April 4th. For more information on tickets and preview performances, why don't you give us a city theater call at 412 -431 -CITY, that's 412 -431 -CITY or for those of you who are like me and alphabetically challenged, 412 -431 -2489. Can you believe that that's the end of another episode of Black Horizons? We'll be preempted for the rest of March for a spring fundraiser, but we'll be back in April to kick off our 35th year. I'm Chris Moore and from all of us, Manette Seed, and the rest of us here at Black Horizons. Have a good evening. Bye. Set Jesus provided by the History Store, Craig Street in Oakland, and

Chris Moore's Wardrobe provided by Laira Moore's of Pittsburgh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be here now. Wait, wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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