DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley

Dennis is joined via Zoom from Portugal by former U.K. boxing manager Kellie Maloney to discuss the new documentary about Kellie's life and transition Knockout Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story. The film, which is now available on VOD, documents her previous life as successful boxing promoter Frank Maloney through her transition to Kellie in 2014 and its aftermath. Kellie talks about falling in love with boxing as a child, taking Lennox Lewis all the way to the Heavyweight Champion, how the physicality of boxing allowed her to vent the stress she was feeling inside and that time Frank the promoter experienced the petty, bullying side of Donald Trump. Kellie also talks about how in her dreams, she's always been female, the back-to-back tragic losses that happened in her life that led to her finally deciding to be true to herself and the decision to go on the Big Brother reality show just eight weeks after coming out publicly as trans. Other topics include: her most surprising supporters, the people close to her who dropped her like a brick, staring with envy at her ex-wife Tracy when she would get ready to go out, the difference between the British press and the American press, having a row with Leslie Jordan in the U.K. Big Brother house then later becoming friends, the full frontal moment in the documentary she tried to have cut, doing female breast exercises when he was alone in the gym then switching back to sparring exercises when someone walked in and the immense relief she felt after she transitioned when she was finally able to face the world as herself.

In this special Tonys week episode, Dennis is joined via Zoom by Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller to discuss his book Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir, which documents his journey from a childhood of family dysfunction and always feeling like an outsider to thriving as a Broadway producer with four Best Musical Tonys to his credit (Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton). Jeffrey talks about why he decided to write the book, the elementary school teacher who saw what was special in him, always having the self belief to take big swings and confessing his love to his college best friend, who happened to be future Broadway composer Andrew Lippa. He also recalls an early workshop of Tik Tik...Boom! where he was exposed to the work of Jonathan Larson for the first time. He was so knocked out he wrote Larson a long, passionate letter, which led to Seller producing Rent five or so years later. He recalls being similarly knocked out by Lin-Manuel Miranda's talent at an early workshop of In the Heights. Other topics include: the current renaissance of new musicals on Broadway, why he chose to write so frankly about sex in his book, that time his process server father decided he wanted to become a circus clown, what it was like to start making really good money after growing up poor in a neighborhood of Detroit known as "Cardboard Village," the year his underdog puppet musical Avenue Q beat out Wicked for Best Musical, what Hamilton represents during the second Trump administration, Jonathan Larson's tragic and untimely death just as Rent was about to explode on the scene, what Larson's parents told him on the night after they lost their son and much, much more.

Dennis is joined by his friends and past podcast guests Frank DeCaro and Jim Colucci to talk about a brand new arts festival they are co-programming. It's called Pride Live! Hollywood and it takes place June 11th through the 29th at various venues in Hollywood. JIm and Frank talk about the various events on the agenda, including a Norman Lear tribute, a screening and party of Saturday Night Fever with director John Badham and actress Donna Pescow attending, a Golden Girls tribute, the Where The Bears Are documentary A Big Fat Hairy Hit. a Queer as Folk cast reunion as well as screenings of the films The World According to Allee Willis, Relax, It’s Just Sex, The Big Johnson, The Grotto, Unicorn and the Village People musical Can’t Stop the Music. Other topics include: feeling a call to fill the hole left by Outfest, the surprising number of guests who said yes, why queer joy is a radical act, the pros and cons of nostalgia and memorabilia collecting, scoring festive outfits on sale at Mr. Turk and their hopes that the fest will be so successful that they will both become insufferable a-holes by Year Three. (www.pridelivehollywood.com)            

Dennis is joined via Zoom by playwright Tom Jacobson whose latest play Tasty Little Rabbit is currently showing at the Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles. The play tells the true story of a 1936 Fascist Italian investigation of pornography charges in Taormina, Sicily. This artistic prosecution uncovers a much darker secret of a 1890s love triangle between photographer Wilhelm Von Gloeden, an a 18 year-old Sicilian boy and a mysterious Irish poet. Tom talks about how he first learned of the true story, visiting Sicily as part of his research, the riveting "Kissing Contest" scene at the play's center and why the story is so relevant to today. He also talks about how he's been able to be so productive as a playwright while working a day job as a fundraiser for organizations like the Natural History Museum, LACMA and the Los Angeles Zoo. Other topics include: falling in love with theater as a kid in Oklahoma, using a New York-based alias to get his breakthrough play Cyberqueer produced in Los Angeles, writing plays to upset his mother, being told he's "too old to write for TV" at the age of 33, meeting his husband of 30 years on a blind date and why he loves being a part of the LA theater community.

Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor Kasey Mahaffy who is currently starring as Alfie Byrne, a Dublin bus driver who directs community theater at night, in the musical A Man of No Importance at A Noise Within theater in Pasadena. Kasey talks about relating more to this role than any he's played in the past, how he and the rest of the cast honed their Irish accents, why now is a very meaningful time to be telling this story and what it's like to hear audience members audibly crying while you're trying to play a scene. He also talks about his role in the 2022 L.A. production of Matthew Lopez's epic gay play The Inheritance and how he and the entirely queer cast are still bonded to this day. Other topics include: being married to a fellow actor (Francisco Chapin from TV's Matlock) and how they met on OkCupid, how A Man of No Importance is a valentine to theater in addition to being a coming out story, how nice Matt LeBlanc was to him on his first TV gig on Joey, dissolving into tears at a Keith Haring art exhibit, Jennifer Coolidge sharing stories of road rage and what casting directors really mean when they say, "We need you to be more grounded." www.anoisewithin.org

Dennis is joined via Zoom by Director Lovell Holder & Writer-Performer Roger Q. Mason, the duo behind the provocative and beautifully-crafted new film Lavender Men, which is based on Mason's hit stage play of the same name. The story centers on Taffeta (they/them, played by Mason), the put-upon stage manager of a play about Abraham Lincoln. After one too many backstage indignities, Tafetta cracks and decides to take the whole show over and narrate it as their fantasia and things get wild from there. Roger talks about the film's central themes of why do we, as humans, like what we like and the gulf that often exists between what we desire and what we need. Lovell talks about using the films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina as touchstones while making the piece, the day during the shoot when he ran out of steam and ideas and meeting Roger when then were both in their late teens. They both talk about working with the editor Morgan Halsey whose father Richard Halsey happened to speak at a screening of American Gigolo that Dennis saw on the very same day that he did this interview. Other topics include: eating an entire apple pie on stage, Mason refusing to take a nap during naptime at the YMCA as a child, the friends that pitched in to make the movie happen and Roger's belief that, "It’s never easy to tell the truth in a world that capitalizes on lies and illusion."

Dennis is joined via Zoom by filmmaker Sarah Kambe Holland whose new film Egghead and Twinkie flips the gay guy-straight girl trope on its head with the story of a gay girl-straight boy friendship that undergoes some changes after the girl comes out. Sarah talks about starting work on the project at 19, taking inspiration from her own coming out story, shooting a road movie within one hour of Orlando, Florida and having most of her crew be under 25 years old. She also talks about moving to the U.S. from Japan at nine and undergoing serious culture shock, incorporating her own love of animation into the movie and the lesson she learned from her actors during one particularly emotional scene. Other topics include: becoming a YouTuber with thousands of subscribers at 15, casting an actress who had never had a speaking role in a film before as Twinkie the Flipcam her family gave her that started her love of filmmaking and her real-life coming out speech to her parents that occured at the chain restaurant First Watch. https://eggheadandtwinkie.com

In this special bonus episode, Dennis interviews his friend Steven Havens, who just won $250,000 as the last man standing on Season 3 of the Fox game show The Floor. Steven talks about how he came to be on the show, the months of rigorous coaching provided by his game designer husband Jeb (who happens to be Dennis's co-creator on the game You Don't Know My Life!), shooting the entire season over one week in Ireland and the moment, minutes before he actually won, when he thought to himself, 'I got this.' Other topics include: promising his husband that he wouldn't talk smack about the other players and then talking smack about the other players, keeping his win a secret for 8 months, how his watch parties gave the people in his life something positive and hopeful to engage with during this dark time, choosing to wear his chef's shirt on the show as an intimidation tactic, getting the "winner's edit," what he plans to do with the money and the moment he almost slipped on stage and brought Rob Lowe down with him. @chefsteveneats on Instagram

Dennis is joined via Zoom by Hillary Carlip the designer and co-author of the most fabulous pop-up book you'll ever see Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch, which is a book dedicated to the home, kitsch collection and all-round fabulousness of Hillary's friend, the late great songwriter and visual artist Allee Willis. (Allie is also the subject of a documentary that was featured on this podcast last year; The World According to Allee Willis. It's now streaming on Hulu.) Hillary talks about how the pop-up book project came to her, finding illustrator Neal McCullough in Ireland and "paper engineer" Mike Malkovas in Paris and collaborating on this incredibly elaborate book all over Zoom. She also talks about creative endeavors from her past including the memoir Queen of the Oddballs, the photo book Ala Cart, which was inspired by the abandoned shopping lists Hillary's been collecting for years, juggling in the movie Xanadu and winning The Gong Show and host Chuck Barris's mad adoration. Other topics include: her long marriage to TV writer and producer Maxine Lapiduss, watching Olivia Newton-John fall for Matt Lattanzi on Xanadu, managing the ups and downs of a creative career while staying true to herself and the many times during the book's creation when she felt the spirit Allee guiding the way.  www.williswonderlandpopupbook.com www.hillarycarlip.com  

As a Bonus on the main Dennis Anyone, here are two back-to back sample episodes of Dennis's brand new Patreon offering: DENNIS ANYONE: THE PATREON PROJECT, which you can subscribe to for $5 by going to Patreon.com and searching Dennis Anyone.  Topics in Episode 1 include: the Late Night With the Devil actor Fayssal Bazzi learning that I put him on my dreamboard and his response, Four Rooms author David Wichman does the Observation Deck, the Oscar-nominated doc Black Box Diaries, a magazine flashback with the late Michelle Trachtenberg and Dennis's decision in January 2020 to try and be happy anyway. Topics in Episode 2 include: The White Lotus's Leslie Bibb has a magazine flashback, Dennis sees Dancing With The Stars Live, High Art, A Nice Indian Boy and a stage version of Jane Eyre, Paul Rudnick answers a porny question from the Observation Deck, and film producer Lindsay Doran introduces Dennis to the idea of Positive Psychology. DENNIS ANYONE PATREON PAGE