New play tells story of African-American lesbian who draws her inspiration from Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty)
Natalie Portman’s iconic film roles have provided the inspiration for a new play about a 16-year-old African-American lesbian set to debut off-Broadway in February.
All The Natalie Portmans tells the story of lesbian Keyonna. She and her older brother Samuel find themselves on the brink of eviction, which leads Keyonna to escape into a world of romantic comedies, red carpets and Natalie Portman’s films.
Keyonna is described as too smart, “too gay,” and too lonely to fit in – but she is finally forced to confront her demons when the many Natalie Portmans from different films start talking back to her.
All The Natalie Portmans will debut off-Broadway in February.
The play – which is written by C.A. Johnson – will make its world premiere with MCC Theatre this February, Broadway.com reports.
All The Natalie Portmans is a love letter addressed to every queer girl struggling to actualize her dreams and every poor Black family fighting to love one another despite the onslaught.
The cast includes Tony nominee Montego Glover as Ovetta, Kara Young as Keyonna, Elise Kibler as Natalie Portman, Joshua Boone as Samuel and Renika Williams as Chantel.
Speaking at a press conference this week, playwright Johnson said: “All The Natalie Portmans is a love letter addressed to every queer girl struggling to actualize her dreams and every poor Black family fighting to love one another despite the onslaught,” Playbill reports.
Joshua Boone, Kara Young, Montego Glover, , C.A. Johnson, Kate Whoriskey, Elise Kibler and Renika Williams (Walter McBride/Getty)
“I’m delighted to work with MCC and hope audiences laugh, cry, and commune with us for weeks to come!”
Portman, who is a vocal LGBT+ ally, has won her fair share of queer fans over the years with her iconic film performances.
Natalie Portman is a vocal LGBT+ ally and has won over queer fans with her film performances.
In 2012, she played a ballerina in Black Swan and won an Academy Award for her performance. In the film, her character had a sex dream about a fellow ballerina, played by Mila Kunis. That scene upset straight people so much that they complained in their droves to the British Board of Film Classification, arguing that the film should have had a higher age rating.
Last year, the actress went to a Women’s March wearing a hat that read: “Make America Gay Again.”
Taking to Instagram, she posted a selfie in a Make America Gay Again hat – as well as a snippet from the Time’s Up letter.
It read: “We seek equal representation, opportunities, benefits and pay for all women workers, not to mention greater representation of women of colour, immigrant women, and lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, whose experiences in the workforce are significantly worse than their white, cisgender, straight peers.”
