Tony Award winner Billy Porter is going back to the New York stage.
This fall, the Pose star will be starring in his own play. Porter’s The Untitled Sex Project will open on Oct. 29 at Primary Stages on Off-Broadway.
The play was written by Porter and took him ten years to make. It is based on his friendships through and after the AIDS crisis. The play’s plot reflects those true stories of “the lost generation of gay men” by centering on five gay men who survived the crisis.
"It’s loosely based on me and four of my best friends as we tried to figure out how to close the chasm between sex and intimacy," Porter told The Hollywood Reporter. "You know, gay men of a certain age, like those of us in our late 40s or early 50s, we survived the plague. We know how to fight but we don’t know how to live, and the people who were supposed to teach us how to do that died in the plague. And now we have an administration that’s trying to take us back to what we were before the plague.”
Porter says he’s excited to put out a voice and story rarely heard on the mainstream stage.
"I'm excited to bring it to the world," He said. "It's a group of people that the world hasn't really spent much time with: gay men of color; black to be specific."
Porter also notes how important the story is. He wants to “contribute to the conversation” about race relations and equality that many Americans are avoiding at the moment. That said, he insisted that he and his story are not complaining. Simply talking.
"Until we all understand how to stand up for the one that’s beside us, we’re going to stay in the same shit we’re in,” Porter said.
Again, The Untitled Sex Project will appear on October 29 at New York’s Off-Broadway venue Primary Stages.
