JC Lee’s Millennial Comedy Salutes Out & Proud Among Us

by Barry David Horwitz

Lift a glass of bubbly “To My Girls,” celebrating three generations of gay life—including Gens X, Y, and Z. Three gay friends embody a brilliant comic history of gay liberation in an Air BnB rental in Palm Springs. These Millennials are getting close to 40, as they comically hold tightly onto their YOUTH. They take us on a FABULOUS TRIP.

These Gen Y friends are enjoying being OUT & PROUD, still on the loose. Dear friends from New York & L.A., but wildly different, they try to value their friendship above all things—while they still relentlessly hunt for Mr. Right. Each of them is a BLAST!

First onstage is scheming Curtis (versatile Robert Rushin), a self-concerned, tall, trim, white gay boy who fears 40, though he’s only 37. He parades around in his Speedo, proving that he still hits the gym and has a hot body. But he’s over-confident and patronizing to his adoring friends and many lovers.

Curtis rents the beautiful and tacky Palm Springs retreat with hot tub and pool of course—to host his old friends. He pretty much ignores the landlord Bernie, a Gen X-er who asserts his right-wing politics fearlessly.

Entrance of the evening comes from Castor (exciting Louel Señores) who bursts in wearing bright print beachwear. You cannot beat Señores for quick wit, insight, and rejected love. Castor always bounces back, tells great jokes on himself, and pines for romance. Lovable Señores embodies Asian American Castor’s  gay loneliness with wit and bravado.

CASTOR: To test drive being gay, see which boundaries were exciting to cross, what was too scary, what made me blush in the dark of my dad’s home office, praying no one picked up the phone and severed the dial-up connection. Chatrooms were how millennials learned to be gay.

With perfect comic timing, James Arthur M. plays a brilliant Leo, a successful African American intellectual who knows all the best songs and intellectual trends. M. does a great job as he talks directly to us, describing the origins of Palm Springs:

LEO: My babies: Welcome to Palm Springs, first home to the native Cahuilla people who managed to go mostly unbothered by colonists well into the 1800s. Why you ask? Because these pasty-ass Europeans didn’t get why anyone would want to call a desert home. So, they did what so few white people ever do: they let people be.

Leo sees himself and his fabulous friends as clearly as he sees gay history—he cannot fool himself. And he opens his friends’ eyes to reality, too.

Playwright JC Lee spins great put-downs, perfect for this hilarious gay family comedy. Every line has secret meanings, as the three generations of gay guys explain their times, their loves, and their hopes—a perfect storm of comedy.

Omar, representing Gen Z, is played by magnetic Samuel del Rosario in a hot pink Speedo. Omar, the youngest, sees what the Millennials miss, as he shrewdly questions their assumptions and their gay bitchiness:

OMAR: I think watching a lot of internet porn and getting called a faggot in high school isn’t the same as all your friends dying because they did the one thing that made them feel like a human being.

Omar’s grasp of generational suffering is staggering in one so young. His hotness and his brains rattle the Millennials!

Each of these longtime companions have a distinct racial or social slant on how to be gay and seek joy. They take the white boy to task for his manipulation and privilege—he has imperialism in his veins, and they call him on it.

An astounding Act Two brings them together in new and surprising ways, paving the way to reconciliation and insights on gay culture. They hark back to one special Beyonce night at the Stud in San Francisco. And when one more friend Jeff (Maro Guevara) shows up with a semi-tragedy and full of blood, the weekend takes a sharp turn to revelation.

Funny, friendly, fabulous—this is the gay play that sums up where we’ve been and even where we are going. In the words of hard-nosed LEO:

. . . what I saw that day were queens who were supposed to be my sisters instead remind me relentlessly that I am not enough: not straight-acting enough, not black enough, upset I won’t go along with racism dressed as fetish.

Leo’s clear-eyed dissing of his friends puts the whole show in focus and turns hilarity and friendship into a new family constellation. I want to see this beautiful, touching, witty comedy AGAIN!

 

“To My Girls” by JC Lee, directed by Ben Villegas Randle, set designed by Matt Owens, lighting by Justin A. Partier, sound by Kaitlin Rosen, costume & props by J. Conrad Frank, at New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco. Info: nctcsf.org – to June 8, 2025.

Cast: Samuel de Rosario, Maro Guevara, James Arthur M., Tom Reardon, Robert Rushin, and Louel Señores.

Banner photo: Robert Rushin, James Arthur M., and Louel Señores. Photos: Lois Tema