{"id":1702,"date":"2013-06-12T10:02:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T10:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2015-01-08T17:50:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T22:50:27","slug":"billy-porter-a-pittsburgher-through-and-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/06\/12\/billy-porter-a-pittsburgher-through-and-through\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Porter, a\u00a0Pittsburgher through and through"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dee Jay Oshry, left, with Billy Porter, center, and Bart Rack at the City Theatre’s Season Shakeup Party at the Karlovich, September 20, 2007, Rebecca Droke\/Post-Gazette <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Billy Porter came prepared to accept the Tony Award for best actor in a musical on Sunday, which he won for his first nominated role, as the flashy drag queen Lola in \u201cKinky Boots.\u201d He told the audience at Radio City Music Hall that his journey to that moment had started as an 11-year-old watching TV in his East Liberty kitchen and seeing the \u201cDreamgirls\u201d cast performing at the Tonys.<\/p>\n

He revealed a powerful voice of his own to a TV audience at age 22, when he was named the male vocalist grand champion on Ed McMahon\u2019s \u201cStar Search,\u201d then got to live his dream in local productions of \u201cDreamgirls\u201d at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in 1994 and for Pittsburgh CLO in 2004. It was around \u201904 that Billy \u2014 who early in his professional career was credited as W. Ellis Porter \u2014 found a theatrical home at City Theatre on the South Side. That\u2019s why you heard him give a shout out to City\u2019s producing artistic director, Tracy Brigden, when he had so much to shout about Sunday night. It was at City that he developed his one-man show, \u201cGhetto Superstar.\u201d And just before heading to Chicago last year to get \u201cKinky Boots\u201d on its Tony-winning trajectory, he was on the South Side to choreograph the new Andy Warhol musical \u201cPOP!\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylish Billy, who wore an ascot as he dashed onto the stage to accept his Tony, is a Pittsburgher through and through, graduating from Pittsburgh CAPA High School and Carnegie Mellon University before working as a director, writer, producer and recording artist who also has appeared on television and film.<\/p>\n

His Broadway musical credits include \u201cMiss Saigon,\u201d \u201cFive Guys Named Moe\u201d and \u201cSmokey Joe\u2019s Cafe,\u201d and he was Teen Angel in \u201cGrease,\u201d with fellow Western Pennsylvanian Jeff Calhoun as director. The assistant choreographer on that show was Jerry Mitchell, the director and Tony-winning choreographer of \u201cKinky Boots.\u201d Now that he\u2019s a Tony winner, Ms. Brigden said, \u201cIt remains to be seen\u201d if he\u2019ll be back on a stage here, although, \u201che knows he has a solid artistic home here as a writer. But my hope for him is that he is fully embraced by the theater community, as he should have been long ago, and that might mean he has so many offers he has to turn some down.\u201d And wouldn\u2019t that be a dream come true for the kid with the big voice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Porter came prepared to accept the Tony Award for best actor in a musical on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesBilly Porter, a\u00a0Pittsburgher through and through<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1066],"tags":[1191,1035,1036,1044],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tumblr_mo8wonDCef1rr5swxo3_r1_1280.jpg?fit=1236%2C1560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2118,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/01\/23\/the-conn-clan-is-distraught-as-billy-is-knocked-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":0},"title":"The Conn Clan is distraught as Billy is knocked out","date":"January 23, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"It was a sports night in Pittsburgh.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/tumblr_mh1m5xjaLd1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C1115&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8451,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2018\/04\/04\/students-hear-first-hand-accounts-of-the-turbulent-days-after-mlks-murder\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":1},"title":"Students hear first-hand accounts of the turbulent days after MLK’s murder","date":"April 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThe students can see themselves as scholars\"","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/web.20180404_MLK_Proctor.jpg?fit=1200%2C907&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6885,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2016\/08\/03\/the-evolution-of-wiz-khalifa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":2},"title":"The evolution of Wiz Khalifa","date":"August 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I definitely want to be one of the big icons of music,\u201d he said in 2005.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Digs_Wiz008.jpg?fit=1200%2C882&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9358,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2019\/01\/21\/mlk-martin-luther-king-jr-legacy-in-pittsburgh\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":3},"title":"Remembering MLK’s impact in Pittsburgh","date":"January 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Trying to research the Rev. 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The Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press wrote short\u2026","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/9d400kqn.jpg?fit=1200%2C778&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2173,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/12\/31\/pittsburghers-party-on-new-years-eve\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":4},"title":"Pittsburghers party on New Year\u2019s Eve","date":"December 31, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Remember December of 1985?","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/tumblr_mfcjqdSChO1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C791&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1469,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/08\/23\/fritzie-zivic-and-jake-lamotta-at-forbes-field\/","url_meta":{"origin":1702,"position":5},"title":"Fritzie Zivic and Jake LaMotta at Forbes Field","date":"August 23, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Ferdinand Henry John Zivic was one of the genuine characters to come out of Pittsburgh.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/tumblr_mrxrov5Ob31rr5swxo5_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C829&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4313,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/4313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}