Kit Williamson (born November 13, 1985) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for creating, writing, directing, and starring in the

dark comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single i ...

EastSiders ''EastSiders'' is an American dark comedy web series created by Kit Williamson. It premiered on YouTube on December 14, 2012, and began streaming through Logo TV's website on April 23, 2013. Set in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, the series follows coup ...

''. For his work on the series, he has been nominated for several

Indie Series Awards The Indie Series Awards (formerly the Indie Soap Awards) is an annual event hosted by ''We Love Soaps'', based in Los Angeles, California, honoring the best in independently produced, scripted entertainment created for the Internet. The ceremony ...

and Daytime Emmy Awards.

Early life

He was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi and attended Interlochen Arts Academy, an arts boarding school in northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, lower Michigan. He later attended Fordham University and received his MFA from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.

Career

''EastSiders''

In 2012, Williamson created the

''; two episodes were launched on YouTube in December 2012. Williamson Crowdfunding, crowdfunded the remaining episodes on Kickstarter, raising over $25,000. The subsequent second and third seasons were also successfully crowded funded through Kickstarter. In 2014, Wolfe Video became the series official Distribution (business), distributor. The series was sold to Netflix in 2016, and a third season was released in 2017. The series has received critical acclaim since its release. Writing for IndieWire, Williamson explained his inspiration for the series:

My goals when I created the show were simple; I wanted to write, direct and star in a project and see it through to completion, because I had been involved in so many micro budget projects that never saw the light of day. I also wanted to create the kind of LGBT series that TV networks refuse to, one where the main characters were not only gay, but flawed, complex individuals trying to navigate their messy lives, just like their straight friends.

For his work on ''EastSiders'', Williamson received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for 43rd Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Outstanding Digital Daytime Drama Series, as well as several Indie Series Awards, Indie Series Award nominations.

Other work

Williamson has worked as an actor on stage, television, and in film. He appeared in the Broadway theatre, Broadway premiere of Eric Bogosian's ''Talk Radio (play), Talk Radio'', starring Liev Schreiber, which ran from March 11 to June 24, 2007. Other stage performances include the Off-Broadway premiere of Przemyslaw Wojcieszek's ''Made in Poland''. For this performance in ''Made in Poland'', Williamson earned a positive review in ''Variety (magazine), Variety'': "Williamson's hilariously serious perf as an angst-filled wannabe revolutionary strikes exactly the right note. As he wanders around his little town in post-Communist Poland, vandalizing cars and trashing phone booths, the unfairness of everything becomes so oppressive he delivers Bogus' every line like it's a prelude to a fistfight." His television roles include a recurring role on the AMC (TV channel), AMC series ''Mad Men'', from 2013 to 2015, as well as supporting roles on ''Numb3rs'' (2009), ''Death Valley (TV series), Death Valley'' (2011), and ''The Good Wife'' (2015). In 2021, Williamson was announced alongside Brittany Cavallaro as a writer and producer for the television adaptation of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar (fictional country), Valdemar novel series. The first season will adapt Lackey's Last Herald Mage trilogy, Last Herald-Mage trilogy. The show is being developed by Radar Pictures with Ted Field as Executive Producer. Williamson said that his connection the trilogy's gay protagonist enamored him with the books, telling ''Deadline Hollywood, Deadline'':

Vanyel in ''The Last Herald Mage'' series was one of the first gay characters I encountered, and as a recently out 16-year-old I can’t stress enough the impact that these books had on me. The Valdemar series was far ahead of its time in the portrayal of LGBTQ characters, and Lackey’s writing afforded them a level of depth and complexity that is still very rare, especially in genre storytelling.

Personal life

Williamson is Coming out, openly gay and has been married to his ''EastSiders'' co-star John Halbach since February 27, 2016.

References

External links

Kit Williamson
on Twitter * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Williamson, Kit Living people American directors American male stage actors American male television actors American gay actors Interlochen Center for the Arts alumni 1985 births Fordham University alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni People from Jackson, Mississippi Actors from Mississippi