Playwright Robert O’Hara knew exactly what he was doing when he named his hit 2011 play “Bootycandy.” The provocative title generates interest and all kinds of assumptions about the semi-autobiographical comedy deeply entrenched in the Black queer experience. On May 14, Atlanta audiences will be able to experience O’Hara’s play when it opens at Actor’s Express. 

”Bootycandy,” tells the story of Sutter (Damian Lockhart), who is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursing homes. O’Hara weaves together scenes, sermons, and sketches to create a kaleidoscope that interconnects to portray growing up Black and gay. 

Charlotte-based director Martin Damien Wilkins is at the helm of the Atlanta production. Wilkins has a long history with Actor’s Express and “Bootycandy,” having directed the show for Actor’s Theater of Charlotte in 2017. Like O’Hara, Wilkins is intentional about amplifying the Black gay experience in "Bootycandy," particularly after a 2017 performance where he says an audience member rejected the existence of a Black gay experience during a post-show talkback. 

“A woman, very pointedly said to me—‘There's not a Black gay experience. There's just a gay experience.’ And my response was, as a Black queer man, I love that this play is about the Black gay experience. I wasn't gonna let that hold space at all,” Wilkins says. “Because certainly, we love the idea of things being universal, but Robert [O’Hara] is writing about who we are as Black gay men in terms of how he sees our experiences.” 

But outrageously, as O’Hara explained during a 2014 interview with Playwrights Horizon on the origin of his satirical comedy. 

“They come from real encounters that I’ve had with people. But then, of course, it’s completely outrageous. No one wants to actually see my life onstage,” he said. “But if you sort of twist it and pull it and go to the extreme of the experience, that might be fun. That’s part of the fun of being in theater. You can actually create something that’s theatrical.” 

You can also make space for Black queer actors to unpack their own traumatic experiences in the rehearsal room as Wilkins has done, through a script that elicits raucous laughter despite tackling painful situations. 

“Through the audition process, it was really important to me that we have that [queer] representation on stage, especially in the main character Sutter,” Wilkins says, referring to the play’s central character played by openly queer actor Damian Lockhart. 

A Buena Vista, GA native, Lockhart has called Atlanta home for over a decade, which is just a few years shy of when he was first introduced to O’Hara’s work and became laser-focused on landing the role of Sutter. 

“I was preparing from the moment that I saw it was on the [Actor’s Express] season announcement,” Lockhart says. “I was going to make it my mission to audition and to go in extremely prepared. It’s a show that I really care about. It is one of the few times that I was able to truly see someone like me in a play and in-text without me having to cross into the realm of performing masculinity for people,” he said. 

A Love Letter To The Black Queer Community

Unlike Lockhart, his castmate, Charlie T. Thomas, who plays Actor Four, was unfamiliar with the play and read it for the first time in preparation for his callback audition. Thomas tells The Reckoning that being able to bring the show to life with this cast feels like a cookout with family in a creative setting that is rarely afforded to him as an actor. 

“I can count on one hand how many Black plays I've been a part of. To be a Black gay man in a Black play is so important, and I didn't think it was going to be until I read it,” Thomas says.

“There's so much in my background, so much of my childhood and life experience is written in the script. It feels very freeing,” he said. “The first day, we passed around the word homecoming because it just felt so at home to be saying those words and to be in those scenarios.” 

While Thomas and Lockhart can draw upon their own lived experiences as Black queer men for their roles, they, along with Wilkins have also had to unpack painful moments from their past as queer youth coming into the realization of their sexual identity throughout the creative process. 

“What was interesting to me was the sort of ways in which it was often the women in my life who were trying to correct behavior,” Wilkins says. “Don't sit like that. Don't walk like that. Don't hold your hands like that. And so it's interesting to me that it's reflective in the play as well.”

Like the character he portrays, Lockhart was also encouraged as a child to forego participation in dance and musical theater for activities that were perceived as more masculine and less likely to “influence” him to embrace [his] queerness. 

“They were trying to butch me up. They tried, but it didn’t work,” Lockhart says, jokingly. 

“I always go back and say, am I making little Damian happy? That little Damian who was in second grade and heard that word [faggot] for the first time, and then had to go home and ask, what does that even mean? Am I making him happy? And the answer is yes,” Lockhart says, in a matter-of-fact tone that implies he’s not only telling this story for his inner child, but for all Black LGBTQ+ people still in need of affirmation. 

“I might be 38, but I still need this,” Thomas says. 

“In a world where we get movies, like, "Call Me By Your Name," and TV shows like “Love, Victor—“all of these queer stories are usually wrapped around somebody white. It's rare to get a Black experience, but also for it to be so nuanced and story-driven,” he said. “It's not shtick. It’s genuine. It's honest. It’s funny. It's awkward. It's personal. It's universal. Fifteen-year-old Charlie is losing his mind! He’s like, if I were a kid and I saw this play, I would have lived a completely different life.”

That’s why for Wilkins, “Bootycandy” has become much more than an entertaining evening of theater. For him, it’s a love letter to the Black queer community. 

“I want every Black person, every Black queer person to come in, and even if it's not completely reflective of your experience to feel like I saw some of myself on that stage and it was respectful of my experience and done with the love that I really do believe Robert [Ohara] wrote this play with,” Wilkins says. 

“A Black queer experience is a human experience. It’s not so niche that people can't see themselves in it,” echoed Thomas. 

And pulling from a moment in the show, Lockhart reached for the bitter truth. 

“I want the audience to be uncomfortable,” he said. “In fact, Sutter says in the play that he wants the audience to choke. The work was not easy to write, therefore it should not be easy to digest. So, I think if you're uncomfortable, you should be figuring out why, and working through it, because that's why we're here. That's why we're doing theater.”

“Bootycandy” begins previews May 12 and opens May 14th. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 2 PM, through June 12. Tickets start at $20 and may be purchased online at actors-express.com or by calling 404-607-7469. The show contains nudity and is recommended for mature audiences.