First look at HBO Max’s LGBTQ history series ‘Equal,’ with Keiynan Lonsdale and Alexandra Grey and Hailie Sahar; narrated by Billy Porter

Erik Anderson August 24, 2020

HBO Max has announced the cast of Equal, the upcoming four-part docuseries about the history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the United States.

Emmy, Tony and Grammy-winner Billy Porter (Pose, American Horror Story: Apocalypse) as narrator for Equal, the four-part LGBTQ+ docuseries chronicling the untold events leading up to the Stonewall Uprising, premiering Thursday, October 22. Additionally, the streamer has released the first look trailer for the series, which will premiere as a binge drop during LGBT History Month, the officially recognized period honoring the history and contributions of trailblazers fighting for equality and justice in the queer community, many of whose stories are featured in the groundbreaking series.

Told with never-before-seen archival footage and narrative reenactments, actors Anthony Rapp, Samira Wiley, Keiynan Lonsdale, Theo Germaine, Alexandra Grey, Jamie Clayton and Shannon Purser and many more portray LGBTQ rights activists like Bayard Rustin, Del Martin and Christine Jorgensen from the turn of the century to The Daughter of Bilitis to The Mattachine Society to the 1970s following the Stonewall Riots.

Equal will introduce viewers to a wide range of LGBTQ+ visionaries portrayed by the cast, many of whom identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Each part offers a distinct and connected chapter within the historical timeline: part one, “The Birth of a Movement,”explores the rise of early organizations, The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis in Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively; part two, “Transgender Pioneers,” chronicles the 20^th century trans experience, bookended by the 1966 Compton Cafeteria riots in San Francisco; part three, “Black is Beautiful, Gay is Good!” examines the contributions from the Black community on the growing LGBTQ+ civil rights movement; and part four, “Stonewall: From Rebellion to Liberation,” ties in the decades long struggles with the culminated Stonewall uprising – the beginning of the Pride movement.

Equal will premiere in October in recognition of LGBTQ History Month (not to be confused with June Pride Month) and is produced by Scout Productions (Queer Eye), Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Productions and Jim Parsons and Todd Spiewak’s That’s Wonderful Productions, the series is directed by Stephen Kijak (Sid & Judy) and trans director Kimberly Reed (Prodigal Sons).

Here is your first look at the ensemble cast of Equal in character.

Cheyenne Jackson as Dale Jennings

Dale Jennings was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights groups started in the early 1950s, an American LGBT rights activist, playwright and author. He arrested for allegedly soliciting a police officer in 1952 . He was acquitted on the basis of police intimidation, harassment, and entrapment of homosexuals.

Anthony Rapp as Harry Hay

Harry Hay was a prominent American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as the Radical Faeries, a loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement.

Shannon Purser as Del Martin & Heather Matarazzo as Phyllis Lyon

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon met in 1950, became lovers in 1952, and then co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in San Francisco in 1955, which became the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States. They were married in 2004 until it was voided by the California Supreme Court later that year. They married again on June 16, 2008, in the first same-sex wedding to take place in San Francisco after the California Supreme Court’s decision in In re Marriage Cases legalized same-sex marriage in California and remained together for 56 years until Martin’s death in 2008.

Sara Gilbert as J.M. From Cleveland

The Ladder was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. It was published monthly from 1956 to 1970, and once every other month in 1971 and 1972. It was the primary publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization in the US. “J.M.” represents The Ladder’s anonymous readers.

Anne Ramsay as The FBI Agent

The FBI Agent is a composite of the agents who kept files on and tracked The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.

Alexandra Grey as Lucy Hicks Anderson

Lucy Hicks Anderson was a socialite and chef best known for her brothel in Oxnard, California in the 1940s. She is one of the first documented Black transgender persons in the United States.

Theo Germaine as Jack Starr

It’s believed that Jack Starr would have identified as a transgender man. He was a local outcast in Montana at the turn of century, often arrested for wearing clothes that did not conform to his gender assigned at birth.

Jamie Clayton as Christine Jorgensen

Christine Jorgensen was an American transgender woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people. She also worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer and recorded several songs.

Isis King as Alexis

Alexis is a composite of the trans and queer people who participated in the Cafeteria Riot in Compton, California, in 1966, an uprising against police brutality three years before Stonewall.

Samira Wiley as Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway with her best known work, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened in 1959 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Keiynan Lonsdale as Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and LGBTQ rights. He worked directly under Martin Luther King, Jr. and was instrumental in the Montgomery bus boycott and the March on Washington. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013.

Jai Rodriguez as José Sarria

Harvey Milk might have become the first openly candidate to win an election in California but José Sarria became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States in 1961, seeking the same Board of Supervisors seat in San Francisco that Milk later won. Also known as The Grand Mere, Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and the Widow Norton, Sarria performed as a drag queen at the Black Cat Bar and as the founder of the Imperial Court System.

Hailie Sahar as Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera was a Latina American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen,participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front, and took part in the Stonewall Riots in 1969.

Scott Turner Schofield as Craig Rodwell

Craig L. Rodwell was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City pride demonstration. Rodwell is considered by some to be the leading gay rights activist in the early homophile movement of the 1960s.

Cole Doman as Mark Segal

Mark Segal is an American journalist. He participated in the Stonewall riots and was one of the original founders of the Gay Liberation Front where he created its Gay Youth program. He was the founder and former president of the National Gay Newspaper Guild and the founder and publisher of Philadelphia Gay News. He has won numerous journalism awards for his column “Mark my Works,” including best column by The National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspaper Association and The Society of Professional Journalist.

Elizabeth Ludlow as Stormé DeLarverie

Stormé DeLarverie was a butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to Stormé and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall riots, spurring the crowd to action. She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer, who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard and volunteer street patrol worker, the “guardian of lesbians in the Village.” She is known as “the Rosa Parks of the gay community.”

Gale Harold as Howard Smith

Howard Smith was an American Oscar-winning film director, producer, journalist, screenwriter, actor and radio broadcaster. At the peak of the historic Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969, he managed to get inside the now famous bar with his Village Voice reporter’s police credentials. He was the only journalist who reported about the siege from that dangerous vantage point. He was later interviewed on this first-hand reporting in the 2010 documentary film, Stonewall Uprising.

Sam Pancake as Dick Leitsch

Dick Leitsch was an American LGBT rights activist. He was president of gay rights group the Mattachine Society in the 1960s. He conceptualized and led the “Sip-In” at Julius’ Bar, one of the earliest acts of gay civil disobedience in the United States, LGBT activists used “sip-ins” to attempt to gain the legal right to drink in bars in New York. He was also known for being the first gay reporter to publish an account of the Stonewall Riots and the first person to interview Bette Midler in print media.

All images courtesy of Warnermedia and HBO Max

Author
Recent Posts

Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.