Outfest has unveiled the lineup for its second annual LGBTQIA+ television festival, The OutFronts, a four-day hybrid festival which will kick off just in time for Pride on June 3. The event will include free-to-view internationally accessible virtual panel discussions and ticketed in-person events in Los Angeles.
On June 3, The OutFronts will host the in-person world premiere of the first two episodes of Peacock’s revival of Queer As Folk at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, with a post-screening talkback with creators and cast including creator/writer/executive producer/director, Stephen Dunn, executive producer/writer, Jaclyn Moore, and cast Devin Way, Fin Argus, Jesse James Keitel, CG, Johnny Sibilly, and Ryan O’Connell.
The new series is a vibrant reimagining of the groundbreaking British series created by Russell T. Davies, exploring a diverse group of friends in New Orleans whose lives are transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy. The series also features an impressive roster of guest stars that includes Kim Cattrall, Juliette Lewis, Nyle DiMarco, Ed Begley Jr., Armand Fields, Megan Stalter, and more.
The OutFronts, which continues through June 6, will feature episodic premieres, advanced screenings, and both in-person and virtual discussions with the talent from some of the most exciting LGBTQIA+ programs available on television today, with the goal of connecting the creators and stars of some of these series directly with their loyal, enthusiastic, and often under-served LGBTQIA+ fanbase.
The festival’s in-person lineup to be held at Neuehouse will give an advanced look at the third and final season premiere of Hulu’s Love Victor followed by a discussion with the cast and creators. There will also be a Queer Firefighters panel (sign us up!) which will include actors who play firefighters on TV (including 9-1-1 Lone Star’s Brian Michael Smith and Ronen Rubinstein) alongside real-life queer firefighters of Los Angeles.
The OutFronts will also host icons from HBO Max’s Legendary for a talk-show style look back at some of the most earth-shattering moments from the show’s history, and a candid talk about all the unfolding drama of the current season.
“After a record-breaking inaugural year in which we saw nearly 70,000 participants and fans attend our digital event from as far as London, Brazil and Des Moines, Iowa – we are excited to offer opportunities to come together in person and still provide the same high-level digital experience as last year,” said Outfest Executive Director, Damien S. Navarro.
“It’s inspiring to know that one festival couldn’t possibly cover all the wonderful LGBTQIA+ stories being told on television today,” said Outfest’s Director of Festival Programming, Mike Dougherty. “The OutFronts by no means represents an exhaustive account of all that is queer in TV, but they do gather a multitude of brilliantly talented queer artists and allies whose diversity of perspective and experience are on full display in these funny, entertaining, and emotional conversations. I can’t wait to share them with the world.”
All panel discussions will be free of charge to view online and via Outfest’s OutMuseum platform.
RSVP and view the full calendar of The OutFronts programming at theoutfronts.com and below.
IN-PERSON EVENTS
QUEER AS FOLK presented by Peacock
World premiere screening of the new Peacock series, a vibrant reimagining of the groundbreaking British series created by Russell T. Davies, exploring a diverse group of friends in New Orleans whose lives are transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy. Post-show talkback with creator and cast.
Featured Talent: Stephen Dunn (Creator/Writer/Executive Producer/Director), Jaclyn Moore (Executive Producer/Writer), Cast members: Devin Way, Fin Argus, Jesse James Keitel, CG, Johnny Sibilly, Ryan O’Connell
LOVE, VICTOR presented by HULU
ADVANCE SCREENING OF SEASON 3, EPISODE 1!
LOVE VICTOR’S third and final season finds Victor going on a journey of self-discovery – not only deciding who he wants to be with, but more broadly, who he wants to be. With their post-high-school plans looming, Victor and his friends are faced with a new set of problems that they must work through to make the best choices for their futures. LOVE VICTOR’s showrunner and young cast gather to talk about the impact of the show’s run, what we might expect from season 3, and bid a farewell to a groundbreaking series. Featuring a sneak peek screening of season 3, episode 1!
Featured Talent: Brian Tanen (Showrunner), Michael Cimino, George Sear, Anthony Turpel, Bebe Wood, Isabella Ferreira, Ava Capri
QUEER FIREFIGHTERS ONSCREEN AND IRL
Come join us at the OutFronts Firehouse, as your favorite queer firefighters on TV (and there are a lot of queer firefighters on TV these days!) sit down with their real-life counterparts to discuss being queer and saving lives.
Featured Talent: Ronen Rubenstein, Brian Michael Smith, others TBA.
LEGENDARY
LEGENDARY, the groundbreaking competition series now in season 3 on HBO Max, has brought explosive ballroom battles into our homes, and featured guest judges including Tiffany Haddish, Taraji P. Henson, and Dominique Jackson. At this special OutFronts live event, LEGENDARY host and MC Dashaun Wesley will call an LSS introduction to some of LEGENDARY’s most iconic performers, house mothers and fathers, and judges, all of whom will be joined by the behind-the-scene magic-makers from Scout Productions for a talk-show style look back at some of the most earth-shattering moments from the show’s history, and a candid talk about all the unfolding drama of the current season.
Full lineup of attending talent to be announced!
VIRTUAL PANELS
CHUCKY
As season 2 of the horror series is being prepared, Child’s Play creator Don Mancini and the franchise’s major cast gather to talk about how Chucky’s legacy has led to one of the queerest shows on television, with relationships at once sweet, and twisted, and bloody.
Featured Talent: Don Mancini, Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Zackary Arthur, Bjorgvin Anarson. Moderated by Bryan Fuller (Creator: Hannibal, Pushing Daisies).
GENTLEMAN JACK
Season 2 of the wildly popular British series – about the unconventional 1800s-era love between Anne Lister and Ann Walker – is here, and creator Sally Wainwright is joined by cast member Lydia Leonard to discuss the intricacies of the show and the fervor of its loyal fanbase.
Featured Talent: Show creator Sally Wainwright and actor Lydia Leonard in discussion with Dana Piccoli.
HARLEM presented by Prime Video
Season one of the hit series introduced us to a close-knit friend group of women that included a queer and savvy tech entrepreneur, Tye, played perfectly by Jerrie Johnson. Johnson along with castmates Juani Feliz, Johnathan Burke, and supervising producer Travon Free, gather to discuss storylines in Harlem S1.
Featured talent: Jerrie Johnson, Juani Feliz, Jonathan Burke, Travon Free (Season 1 Supervising Producer), moderated by Tre’vell Anderson.
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES presented by Disney Plus and Disney Branded Television
Season three of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” is set at Camp Shallow Lake, a family-owned sleepaway camp in California, as the Wildcats and their fellow campers are primed for an unforgettable summer ripe with romance, curfew-less nights and a taste of the great outdoors. In advance of the series’ third season premiere, show creator Tim Federle and key cast members gather to discuss the show’s groundbreaking depiction of young gay romance, its first ever gay love song, and the impact this has had on a young, queer fanbase.
Featured Talent: Executive Producer Tim Federle, cast members Frankie Rodriguez, Joe Serafini, Julia Lester, Larry Saperstein and Saylor Bell, and series writer Ilana Wolpert.
MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM presented by FREEFORM
Freeform’s addictive fantasy series, set in an alternate America where witches ended their persecution by cutting a deal with the government to fight for their country, garnered a huge queer following on the strength of its world-building, and its central queer couple. As the hugely popular series ends its run with season 3, the creator and cast gather to talk about the show’s complex emotional arc, its queerness, and its impact on its queer fans. And maybe a little of what’s in store for the final season.
Featured Talent: Eliot Laurence, Taylor Hickson, Ashley Nicole Williams, Jessica Sutton, Amalia Holm, Demetria McKinney. Moderated by Dana Piccoli.
RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE presented by VH1
Dino-Ray Ramos in conversation with two of the top five queens from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 14, Angeria Paris VanMichaels and Bosco, as they open up about their drag journeys on the series, what it was like being in the top 5 at the Las Vegas finale, their drag influences and inspirations, and their unique styles that they brought to the RuPaul’s Drag Race cast.
Featured Talent: Angeria Paris VanMichaels, Bosco. Moderated by Dino-Ray Ramos.
THE 4400
Ariana Jackson and Sunil Nayar’s reimagining of the sci-fi series – about historically marginalized people from throughout American history suddenly transported to present-day Detroit – provided television with some of its most expansive, inventive queer storytelling in years. The show’s creators, cast, and incredibly queer writing team gather to discuss how they did it.
Featured Talent: Ariana Jackson, Sunil Nayar, Ireon Roach, T.L. Thompson, Jett Garrison, Shomari Kirkwood, Taylor Townsend, Bradley Estrin-Barks
THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS, sponsored by IMDb
Within the sprawling cast of Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s beloved comedy series on HBOMax, Leighton (Reneé Rapp) and Alicia (Midori Francis) created one of the past year’s most memorable queer ships. Noble and the actors behind this storyline meet with writer Jill Gutowitz to have a hilarious and emotional conversation about creating this unforgettable dynamic.
Featured Talent: Co-Creator Justin Noble, Actors Reneé Rapp and Midori Francis. Moderated by Jill Gutowitz.
SORT OF
Undeniably one of the best new queer shows of the past year, SORT OF follows the journey of Sabi Mehboob (Bilal Baig), a gender fluid millennial who straddles various identities from sexy bartender at an LGBTQ bookstore/bar, to the youngest child in a large Pakistani family, to the de facto parent of a downtown hipster family. The creators and cast of this one-of-a-kind series gather to look back at season 1’s impact.
Featured Talent: Bilal Baig, Fab Filippo, Amanda Cordner, Cassandra James, and Becca Blackwell. Moderated by Naveen Kumar.
TOM SWIFT, presented by The CW and CBS Studios
Following the series premiere of The CW’s much anticipated spin-off from the Nancy Drew universe, join the cast and producers of the show that features Tian Richards as the titular exceptionally brilliant inventor with unlimited resources and unimaginable wealth. The devilishly charming Tom Swift is a man who many men would kill to be, or be with – a man with the world in the palm of his hand. But that world gets shaken to its core after the shocking disappearance of his father, thrusting Tom into a breathtaking adventure full of mysterious conspiracies and unexplained phenomena.
Featured Talent: Cast members Tian Richards and Marquise Vilsón, producers Melinda Hsu Taylor, Noga Landau and Cameron Johnson. Moderated by Ranard Caldwell.
THE WILDS, presented by Prime Video
Last year’s OutFronts panel on The Wilds nearly broke the internet…so of course we want more! Stars––and the series’ central queer characters that we lovingly ship as SHONI––Mia Healey and Erana James return, joined by new cast member Miles Guitierrez-Riley, to talk the new directions of season two. Our teenage girls are still stranded on a deserted island as part of a diabolical experiment. And this season ups the drama and keeps you guessing, with the introduction of more test subjects—another island of teenage boys—who must also fight for survival under the watchful eye of the experiment’s puppet master.
Featured Talent: Mia Healey, Erana James, Miles Guitierrez-Riley. Moderated by Dana Piccoli.
YELLOWJACKETS, presented by Showtime
Showtime’s unmissable smash hit traveled back and forth in time from the 1990s to present day, to observe the Yellowjackets, a high school girls’ soccer team whose plane to the state championships crashed in the wilderness. The story of what they did to survive, and the consequences reverberating into the survivors’ present day lives, formed into TV’s most electrifying thriller…and it was incredibly queer, too! The cast members who play the series’ indelible queer characters and one of the writers responsible for their arcs gather to talk about how queerness permeates the series…and just what might be going on in Taissa’s basement!
Featured Talent: Tawny Cypress, Liv Hewson, Rukiya Bernard, writer and Co-EP Ameni Rozsa. Moderator Michael Cuby.
A CAREER-SPANNING CONVERSATION WITH PAULA PELL
Paula Pell’s hilarious turn as a member of aging girl group Girls5Eva in the Peacock series of the same name is only the most recent in a decades-long career of comedy genius. Upon the release of GIrls5Eva season two, Paula is joined by The Advocate’s Editor in Chief Tracy Gilchrist to talk about not only that series’ comic genius, but her experience as a queer women in the television business – a career that included some of the most classic moments from Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and The Oscars.
FROM INFLUENCER TO ACTOR
On this of-the-moment panel, actors who first gained notoriety in the world of social media discuss the trials they faced when “breaking” into television and film, and the lessons they learned; how beginning on social media gave them a unique perspective about the industry and where it’s going; not to mention all the funny and sad moments that happened in between!
Featured Talent: Kalen Allen, Gigi Gorgeous, Boman Martinez-Reid
THE QUEER PIONEERS, sponsored by IMDb
LGBTQIA+ representation on television is at an all-time high, but many of us still remember when queer characters were little more than “very special episode” fodder. Things began to change, slowly but surely, in the mid-‘90s and early 2000s when a handful of trailblazers made their mark on the television landscape—more than a punchline, more than a cameo, these were the first LGBTQIA+ regular and/or recurring roles on TV. Often they were positioned as the token gay character on an otherwise “straight” show, and, in retrospect, the shows may not have always handled their storylines gracefully, but they made a difference to the queer audiences watching at home. This retrospective Outfest panel will bring together a handful of actors who bravely stepped into these early queer roles from across networks and genres to discuss their experiences, the triumphs and the challenges, and highlight how much the industry has changed for the better.
Featured Talent: Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Wilson Cruz (My So-Called Life), Jane Sibbett (Friends). Moderated by Cameron Scheetz.
THE NEW QUEER ICONS OF TELEVISION, sponsored by IMDbPro
Television has recently been blessed with more iconic LGBTQIA+ characters than one festival could possibly cover…but we can still try! In this special panel, Dave Karger sits down with four brilliant queer actors who consistently shine and turn their respective series into appointment television. A vampire familiar/hunter, a non-binary pirate, an 18th century ghost, and a straight-up superhero – these actors are bringing queer life to characters we could previously only dream of, and they discuss the process of creating them, what might be in stores for their futures, and what doors have been opened to them since taking on the roles.
Featured Talent: Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), Brandon Scott Jones (Ghosts),
Javicia Leslie (Batwoman), Vico Ortiz (Our Flag Means Death). Moderated by IMDb Special Correspondent Dave Karger.
