“Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical”
Until July 13th
Signature Theater
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, VA.
$47 to $98
sigtheatre.org
The loud world of counterculture journalists may not be an obvious choice for musical theatres, but the positive topic surrounding the production of Signature Theatre’s Joe Iconis’ “Untitled Unjustified Hunter S. Thompson Musical.”
Eric William Morris, a 67-year-old man, was a drug-added, gun-examined writer, moved to remember in 2005 towards the character’s suicide.
Salazar plays numbers that stop the show – “The Song of the Brown Buffalo” is a wild, unforgettable music that dives into the man’s spirit.
“With the role of Oscar, I live the dream of a Don Papa activist. For years I was cast as a best friend with a heart of gold. Here I am tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ’60s and the ramp-stretched homophobia that has almost folded into culture.”
He continues.
“We live in a similar way. I’m a mixed race. Filipinos and Ecuadorians grew up as well,” says Salazar, 39. [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico]I elicited a lot of experience about having to code the switch before I finally found myself, and I was confident just doing my thing.
“When you meet Oscar on the show, you find out exactly where he is.
Just three years after winning a BFA at the Musical Theatre at the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2011, Salazar happened to meet Iconis at a New York bar. The pair became fast friends and collaborators. “This is our third production,” says George. “So when Joe came to me with an idea, there was no moment when I didn’t trust him.”
In one of Iconis’ previous works, “Be More Chill,” Salazar created the role of Michael Mell. Michael Mel counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.
With a character who is a loyal and caring friend who appeals to a strange audience, not explicitly odd, but odd, Salazar developed a passionate follower. And for an actor who didn’t appear in his father until he was 30, being in a place that supports the community, especially the younger queer people, has proven incredibly special.
“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think “man,” but I encourage everyone to come and see it. “Salazar continues. “Queer audiences should give a shot to the show. As a musical, it’s funny, funny, serious, influential, beautiful. As a gay guy stepping into this show, it was so heterosexual and I didn’t know what to do.
Queer friends see it and love it, Salazar says. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”), saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse while running in California and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time.
“I was the first Oscar to read a script since the inception of the work almost ten years ago. In the tentative, the relationships between the characters have grown, but otherwise there hasn’t been much change. Still, it’s more influential in different ways.
Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, is a criminal justice reporter for the Guardian, who says, “There are so many bans, including books, drug queens, travel and more.
He describes the Hunter Thompson Musical as an Iconis masterpiece, and this is the most proud performance ever, and he feels there is a lot of maturity in it.
“In the play, Thompson tells Nixon about being a con man and a liar,” says Salazar. “This piece speaks a volume about how sad things land in our country. We seem to take them a step forward and go back two steps. Performance is almost art as a protest.”
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
