Duane Boutte

Duane Boutté was born and raised in Fresno, California where his mother (Velda Neal Boutte) taught piano. Boutté's father, Alfred Boutte, is an Air Force veteran and was regional administrator for California's Employment Development Department.{{cite news|last1=Savage|first1=Sam|title=Boutte Touched a Chord in Many|url=http://www.redorbit.com/news/.../1497259/boutte_touched_a_chord_in_many/|publisher=The Fresno Bee|date=July 27, 2008|ref=News Story, Velda Boutte}}{{cite news|last1=Jenkins|first1=Kyra|title=Paving the Way, Leaving a Legacy: Honoring African-American Trailblazers|issue=pages A1, A7|publisher=The California Advocate|date=January 11–18, 2013}} Boutté's parents were active in community programs, particularly those advancing opportunities for Fresno's black citizens,{{cite news|title=Fresno Music Teacher Honored By Former Students|issue=page 5|publisher=The California Advocate|date=March 16, 1994}} and are honored in Fresno's African American History Museum.{{cite web|title=Fresno African American Museum|url=http://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/the-journey-african-american-museum|website=Your Central Valley}} Duane Boutté is the youngest of the couple's seven children.{{cite news|title=Mr. & Mrs. Boutte Celebrate their 50th Anniversary|issue=page 2|publisher=The California Advocate|date=June 20, 2003}} Though coming to California from east Texas, Boutté's paternal family has its Creole roots in Louisiana.{{cite news|last1=Jome|first1=Eric|title=Boutte play to explore questions of race and identity|url=https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2015/03/boutte-play-to-explore-questions-of-race-and-identity/|publisher=Illinois State University News|date=March 25, 2015}} Boutté began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was a toddler, and started composing music at age 4 that his mother would then transcribe.{{cite news|last1=Dawkins|first1=Sydney-Chanele|title=Part 2, An Interview with Duane Boutte - the Director of Rep Stage's 'Home'|url=http://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2013/02/25/part-2-an-interview-with-duane-boutte-the-director-of-rep-stages-home-by-sydney-chanele-dawkins/|publisher=DC Metro|date=February 25, 2013}}{{cite news|last1=Hale|first1=David|title=All jazzed up, Boutte returns to GCP stage, this time with his own songs|issue=Spotlight section page F15|publisher=The Fresno Bee|date=July 16, 1989}}{{cite news|last1=Duckett|first1=Richard|title=Worcester Shakespeare Festival Promises to be a Merry Time|url=http://www.telegram.com/article?Date=20140717&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=307179968&Ref=AR|publisher=Worcester Telegram & Gazette|date=July 17, 2014}}

In 1979, Boutté's parents took him to Roger Rocka's Music Hall in Fresno to see Anything Goes performed by Good Company Players (GCP).{{cite web|title=GCP Actor Profile - Duane Boutte|url=http://gcplayers.com/duane-boutte-gcp-alumnus/|website=GCPlayers|date=2010-07-10}} The musical was preceded by a 15-minute pre-show of song and dance by the troupe's "Junior Company." Boutté auditioned and was accepted into Junior Company later that year. Boutté, then 13, would perform six shows each week for the next three years, taking just two weeks off each year for family vacation. He calls GCP the place where he learned "important...life lessons [like] commitment, responsibility, showing up on time ready, really ready, to work."{{cite news|last1=Tehee|first1=Joshua|title=Take a Bow: Good Company Players celebrates 35 years of community theater|issue=pages 40–41|publisher=Imagine Fresno|date=June 2008}} In GCP's Junior Company, Boutté worked alongside youngsters who would later become his Broadway colleagues (Audra McDonald, Heidi Blickenstaff, Sharon Leal, Andrea Chamberlain, and Sarah Uriarte Berry).{{cite news|last1=Gans|first1=Andrew|title=DIVA TALK: Chatting with [title of show]'s Heidi Blickenstaff Plus Heights and Pacific on CD|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/diva-talk-chatting-with-title-of-show-s-heidi-blickenstaff-plus-heights-and-pacific-on-cd-com-151518|publisher=Playbill|date=July 11, 2008}}{{cite web|last1=Fox|first1=Jena Tesse|title=[interview] With Pressgrove, Blackwell, Bell, and Blickenstaff|url=http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/interview-With-Pressgrove-Blackwell-Bell-and-Blickenstaff-20080926|website=Broadway World|accessdate=September 26, 2008}} Boutté also performed in plays and musicals with the senior company, mostly under the direction of company founder, Dan Pessano, and gained his first television experience in Junior Company's local Saturday morning variety shows, and holiday specials.

Duane Boutté's early career was managed by Summer of '42 actress Jennifer O'Neill. In these years ('86-'88), Boutté filmed episodes of What's Happening Now, A Year in the Life and a made-for-TV movie directed by Anson Williams, and starring Dermot Mulroney. Boutte completed his B.A. in theatre at UCLA, and earned an M.F.A. in acting under Tony Church at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver before moving to New York in 1991. That year, Boutté toured the U.S. with Jeffrey Wright, Rainn Wilson and other young actors in The Acting Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream.{{cite news|last1=Holden|first1=Stephen|title=Theater in Review|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/08/theater/theater-in-review-020092.html|work=New York Times|date=April 8, 1992}} In 1994, he played "Enoch Snow, Jr." in Lincoln Center's TONY Award-winning revival of Carousel, and was one of Michael Hayden's "Billy Bigelow" understudies. Boutté returned to Broadway in 1999 in Parade. He has performed numerous roles in classical and contemporary plays Off-Broadway and at leading regional theatres throughout the country. In 2001, Boutté played "Orestes" in the Oresteia trilogy directed by Tony Taccone and Stephen Wadsworth, inaugurating Berkeley Repertory Theatre's new RODA Theatre.{{cite news|last1=Grant|first1=John Angell|title=The Oresteia Trilogy Makes Strong Showing|url=http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2001-03-23/article/4024?headline=-The-Oresteia-trilogy-makes-strong-showing--By-John-Angell-Grant-Daily-Planet-Correspondent|publisher=Berkeley Daily Planet|date=March 23, 2001}} Among his favorite roles performed, Boutté names "Mercutio" at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and opportunities to premiere works by playwrights like Terrence McNally, Eric Overmyer, Charles Randolph-Wright, and Robert O'Hara.{{cite web|title=You Belong To Me cast biographies|url=http://www.mongrelmedia.com/MongrelMedia/files/61/6189f6c1-8939-4bf3-84a3-17ffea410468.pdf|website=Mongrel Media - You Belong to Me}} Of note among his premieres are Kirsten Childs' Off-Broadway musical The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Playwrights Horizons),{{cite book|last1=Childs|first1=Kirsten|title=The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin|url=https://archive.org/details/bubblyblackgirls0000chil|url-access=registration|publisher=Dramatists Play Service|isbn=0822218798|page=[https://archive.org/details/bubblyblackgirls0000chil/page/5 5]|year=2003}} and Brian Freeman's play Civil Sex in which Boutté played civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (Berkeley Repertory Theatre).{{cite news|last1=Harvey|first1=Dennis|title=Review 'Civil Sex'|url=https://variety.com/2000/film/reviews/civil-sex-1200460168/|publisher=Variety|date=January 30, 2000}} In New York, Boutté has been listed among Vineyard Theatre's esteemed "Community of Artists."{{cite web|title=Our Artists|url=http://www.vineyardtheatre.org/about/our-team/our-artists/|website=VineyardTheatre.org}}

Boutté stars in two films that have become landmarks in gay cinema.{{cite news|title=Double identity: Actor speaks about accurately performing conflicted characters|issue=page 7|publisher=The Battalion, Texas A&M University|date=October 9, 2009}}{{cite book|last1=Duralde|first1=Alonso|title=101 Must See Movies for Gay Men|isbn=0739464574}} The first of these, Stonewall (1995), was directed by Nigel Finch (The Lost Language of Cranes).{{cite web|last1=Ebert|first1=Roger|title=Stonewall Movie Review|url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/stonewall-1996|website=rogerebert.com|accessdate=13 October 2016}} In the film, Boutté plays "Bostonia," a fictional 'mother' of the Stonewall Inn, whose imagined, first punch incites this film's version of the 1969 Stonewall riots. Interview magazine profiled Boutté for his performance in the role, stating "a Stonewall star is born."{{cite news|last1=Moverman|first1=Oren|title=Boutte Camp|agency=Andy Warhol's Interview magazine|publisher=Sandra J. Brant|date=July 1996}} He was the first of the film's actors to come out as gay in an interview with 4-Front magazine that year.{{cite journal|last1=White|first1=Skip|title=Stonewall: The Movie Actor Duane Boutte Takes Us Behind the Scenes|journal=4-Front Magazine|volume=1 |issue=21|date=June 12, 1996|page=73}} Boutté later played "Bruce Nugent, young" in Rodney Evans' 2004 film Brother to Brother. The film, also starring Anthony Mackie and Roger Robinson, presents circa 1920's Bruce Nugent as an unapologetic homosexual accepted, and embraced by celebrated Harlem Renaissance figures like Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston.{{cite journal|last1=Ehrenstein|first1=David|title=Props to a Gay Hero: Duane Boutte Talks about Bringing the Harlem Renaissance to Life in the Person of out Poet Bruce Nugent|journal=The Advocate |date=October 26, 2004|issue=October 26, 2004|page=56}}

Boutté has directed plays and musicals in regional theatres and universities, and has collaborated as composer on new musicals including Lyin' Up a Breeze (presented by Good Company Players in 2002), and Caravaggio Chiaroscuro (performed at LaMama Etc. in 2007).{{cite web|title=Caravaggio Chiaroscuro|url=http://www.theatermania.com/off-off-broadway/shows/caravaggio-chiaroscuro_137876/|website=Theatermania.com}} He has taught acting at Illinois State University), National Theatre Institute, Ramapo College, and directed work at Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York.

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb name}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boutte, Duane}}

Category:1966 births

Category:Living people