Duane Boutté (born March 5, 1966) is an American actor, director, and composer known in film for his portrayal of "Bostonia" in Nigel Finch's''Stonewall'' (1995), and as young "Bruce Nugent" in Rodney Evans' ''Brother to Brother'' (2004). Boutté was in the original Broadway company of ''Parade'', and played "Enoch Snow, Jr." in the 1994 TONY Award-winning revival of ''Carousel''. His television acting credits date from the 1980s and include episodes of ''What's Happening Now'', ''
A Year in the Life
''A Year in the Life'' is an American dramatic series that ran on NBC from September 16, 1987 to April 13, 1988, during the 1987–1988 television season, created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey.
The series began as a three-part miniseries whi ...
'', ''
Sex and the City
''Sex and the City'' is an American romantic comedy, romantic comedy-drama television series created by Darren Star for HBO. An adaptation of Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (newspaper column), newspaper column and 1996 book anthology of the ...
'', and the made-for-television movie ''
The Drug Knot
''The Drug Knot'' is a 1986 ''CBS Schoolbreak Special'', a cautionary tale about teenage drug dependency.
Plot
High-school student Doug Dawson has it all: a loving family (composed of his younger brother and their parents), a terrific girlfriend, ...
'', directed by ''Happy Days'' star,
Anson Williams
Anson Williams (born Anson William Heimlich, September 25, 1949, in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor, singer, and director, best known for his role as gullible, well-intentioned singer Warren "Potsie" Weber on the television series ...
.
Early life
Duane Boutté was born and raised in
Fresno, California
Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, makin ...
where his mother (Velda Neal Boutte) taught piano. Boutté's father, Alfred Boutte, is an Air Force veteran and was regional administrator for California's Employment Development Department. Boutté's parents were active in community programs, particularly those advancing opportunities for Fresno's black citizens, and are honored in Fresno's African American History Museum. Duane Boutté is the youngest of the couple's seven children. Though coming to California from east Texas, Boutté's paternal family has its Creole roots in Louisiana. Boutté began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was a toddler, and started composing music at age 4 that his mother would then transcribe.
In 1979, Boutté's parents took him to Roger Rocka's Music Hall in Fresno to see ''
Anything Goes
''Anything Goes'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap ant ...
'' performed by
Good Company Players Good Company Players (GCP) is an amateur dinner theatre in Fresno, California. It consists of Roger Rocka's Dinner Theater, which primarily stages musicals, and the 2nd Space Theatre, which primarily produces straight plays. Between the two theaters ...
(GCP). The musical was preceded by a 15-minute pre-show of song and dance by the troupe's "Junior Company." Boutté auditioned and was accepted into Junior Company later that year. Boutté, then 13, would perform six shows each week for the next three years, taking just two weeks off each year for family vacation. He calls GCP the place where he learned "important...life lessons
ike
Ike or IKE may refer to:
People
* Ike (given name), a list of people with the name or nickname
* Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and President of the United States Surname
...
commitment, responsibility, showing up on time ready, really ready, to work." In GCP's Junior Company, Boutté worked alongside youngsters who would later become his Broadway colleagues (
Audra McDonald
Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an American actress and singer. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win in all four act ...
,
Heidi Blickenstaff
Heidi Blickenstaff (born December 28, 1971) is an American actress based in New York City best known for playing a version of herself in the musical '' itle of show' during its Off-Broadway and Broadway runs, as well as for originating the role ...
,
Sharon Leal
Sharon Ann Leal is an American actress and singer. She is known for her roles in movies such as ''Dreamgirls'', '' This Christmas'', ''Why Did I Get Married?'', ''Why Did I Get Married Too?'' and her roles on the television shows ''Legacy'', ''Gu ...
, Andrea Chamberlain, and
Sarah Uriarte Berry
Sarah Uriarte Berry is an American actress and singer.
Career
Berry is a native of California and graduated from UCLA in 1992. She made her Broadway debut as Eponine in ''Les Misérables'' in 1993.itle of showcast"> Boutté also performed in plays and musicals with the senior company, mostly under the direction of company founder, Dan Pessano, and gained his first television experience in Junior Company's local Saturday morning variety shows, and holiday specials.
Career
Duane Boutté's early career was managed by ''
Summer of '42
''Summer of '42'' is a 1971 American coming-of-age film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman "Hermie" Raucher. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island (off the coast of Cape C ...
'' actress
Jennifer O'Neill
Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is a Brazilian-born American actress, model, author, and activist. She is known for her modeling and spokesperson work for CoverGirl cosmetics starting in 1963, and her starring role in the Oscar-winnin ...
A Year in the Life
''A Year in the Life'' is an American dramatic series that ran on NBC from September 16, 1987 to April 13, 1988, during the 1987–1988 television season, created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey.
The series began as a three-part miniseries whi ...
'' and a made-for-TV movie directed by
Anson Williams
Anson Williams (born Anson William Heimlich, September 25, 1949, in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor, singer, and director, best known for his role as gullible, well-intentioned singer Warren "Potsie" Weber on the television series ...
, and starring
Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in romantic comedy, western, and drama films. Appearing on screen since 1986, he is known for his work in various films such as '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' Stay ...
. Boutte completed his B.A. in theatre at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, and earned an M.F.A. in acting under
Tony Church
James Anthony Church (11 May 1930 – 25 March 2008) was an English actor, who has appeared on stage and screen. In 1989 he became the Dean of the National Theatre Conservatory, which is the teaching arm of the Denver Center Theatre Company in ...
at the
National Theatre Conservatory
The National Theatre Conservatory was a three-year graduate acting school that in its last three decades was part of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Founded in 1935 as the only congressionally chartered MFA program in U.S. history, it ...
in Denver before moving to New York in 1991. That year, Boutté toured the U.S. with
Jeffrey Wright (actor)
Jeffrey Wright (born December 7, 1965) is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Belize in the Broadway production of ''Angels in America'', for which he would win a Tony Award, and its HBO miniseries adaptation, for which he woul ...
,
Rainn Wilson
Rainn Percival Dietrich Wilson (born January 20, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, podcaster, producer, and writer. He is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the NBC sitcom ''The Office'', for which he earned three consecutive Emm ...
and other young actors in The Acting Company's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. In 1994, he played "Enoch Snow, Jr." in Lincoln Center's TONY Award-winning revival of ''Carousel'', and was one of Michael Hayden's "Billy Bigelow" understudies. Boutté returned to Broadway in 1999 in ''Parade''. He has performed numerous roles in classical and contemporary plays Off-Broadway and at leading regional theatres throughout the country. In 2001, Boutté played "Orestes" in the ''
Oresteia
The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of th ...
'' trilogy directed by
Tony Taccone
Tony Taccone (born July 4, 1951) is an American theater director, and the former Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California.
Early life
Tony Taccone was born on July 4, 1951 in Queens, New York, to an Italian-America ...
and Stephen Wadsworth, inaugurating Berkeley Repertory Theatre's new RODA Theatre. Among his favorite roles performed, Boutté names "Mercutio" at
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...
, and opportunities to premiere works by playwrights like
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally (November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter.
Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," ...
,
Eric Overmyer
Eric Ellis Overmyer (born September 25, 1951) is an American writer and producer. He has written and/or produced numerous TV shows, including '' St. Elsewhere'', '' Homicide: Life on the Street'', ''Law & Order'', ''The Wire'', ''New Amsterdam'', ...
,
Charles Randolph-Wright
Charles Randolph-Wright is an American film, television, and theatre director, television producer, screenwriter, and playwright.
Early life
A native of York, South Carolina, Randolph-Wright graduated with honors from York High School. He at ...
, and
Robert O'Hara
Robert O'Hara (born 1970) is an American playwright and director. He has written ''Insurrection: Holding History'' and ''Bootycandy''. ''Insurrection'' is a time traveling play exploring racial and sexual identity. ''Bootycandy'' is a series of ...
. Of note among his premieres are Kirsten Childs' Off-Broadway musical ''The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin'' (
Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.
Under the ...
), and Brian Freeman's play ''Civil Sex'' in which Boutté played civil rights activist
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, in 19 ...
(
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley.
History
The company was founded in 1968, as the East Bay's first resident pr ...
). In New York, Boutté has been listed among Vineyard Theatre's esteemed "Community of Artists."
Boutté stars in two films that have become landmarks in gay cinema. The first of these, ''Stonewall'' (1995), was directed by
Nigel Finch
Nigel Lucius Graeme Finch (1 August 1949 – 14 February 1995) was an English film director and filmmaker whose career influenced the growth of British gay cinema.
Biography
Nigel Finch was born in Tenterden, Kent, the son of Graham and Tibby Fi ...
(''The Lost Language of Cranes''). In the film, Boutté plays "Bostonia," a fictional 'mother' of the
Stonewall Inn
The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the s ...
, whose imagined, first punch incites this film's version of the 1969
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
.
Interview magazine
''Interview'' is an American magazine founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. The magazine, nicknamed "The Crystal Ball of Pop", features interviews with celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinke ...
profiled Boutté for his performance in the role, stating "a Stonewall star is born." He was the first of the film's actors to come out as gay in an interview with 4-Front magazine that year. Boutté later played "Bruce Nugent, young" in Rodney Evans' 2004 film ''Brother to Brother''. The film, also starring
Anthony Mackie
Anthony Dwane Mackie (born September 23, 1978) is an American actor. Mackie made his acting debut starring in the semi-biographical drama film '' 8 Mile'' (2002). He was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor for his per ...
Bruce Nugent
Richard Bruce Nugent (July 2, 1906 – May 27, 1987), aka Richard Bruce and Bruce Nugent, was a gay writer and painter in the Harlem Renaissance. Despite being a part of a group of many gay Harlem artists, Nugent was among only a few who we ...
as an unapologetic homosexual accepted, and embraced by celebrated
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
figures like
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...
, and
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...
.
Boutté has directed plays and musicals in regional theatres and universities, and has collaborated as composer on new musicals including ''Lyin' Up a Breeze'' (presented by Good Company Players in 2002), and ''Caravaggio Chiaroscuro'' (performed at LaMama Etc. in 2007). He has taught acting at
Illinois State University
Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of th ...
), National Theatre Institute,
Ramapo College
Ramapo College of New Jersey (RCNJ) is a public liberal arts college in Mahwah, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. As of the fall 2021 semester, there were a total of 5,732 students enrolled at the college ...
, and directed work at
Stella Adler Studio of Acting
The Stella Adler Studio of Acting (formerly Stella Adler Conservatory) is a prestigious acting school that was founded by actress and teacher Stella Adler.