Duane Boutté (born March 5, 1966) is an American actor, director, and composer known in film for his portrayal of "Bostonia" in Nigel Finch's Stonewall (1995), and as young "Bruce Nugent" in Rodney Evans' Brother to Brother (2004). Boutté was in the original Broadway company of Parade, and played "Enoch Snow, Jr." in the 1994 TONY Award-winning revival of Carousel. His television acting credits date from the 1980s and include episodes of What's Happening Now, A Year in the Life, Sex and the City, and the made-for-television movie The Drug Knot, directed by Happy Days star, Anson Williams.
Early life 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. Boutté's parents were active in community programs, particularly those advancing opportunities for Fresno's black citizens, and are honored in Fresno's African American History Museum. Duane Boutté is the youngest of the couple's seven children. Though coming to California from east Texas, Boutté's paternal family has its Creole roots in Louisiana. 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.
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). 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." 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). 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.
Career 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. 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. 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. Of note among his premieres are Kirsten Childs' Off-Broadway musical The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Playwrights Horizons), and Brian Freeman's play Civil Sex in which Boutté played civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). In New York, Boutté has been listed among Vineyard Theatre's esteemed "Community of Artists."
Boutté stars in two films that have become landmarks in gay cinema. The first of these, Stonewall (1995), was directed by Nigel Finch (The Lost Language of Cranes). 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." He was the first of the film's actors to come out as gay in an interview with 4-Front magazine that year. 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.
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). 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.
Feature films Year Title Role 1995 Stonewall Bostonia 2002 Checkout Almo 2004 Brother to Brother Bruce Nugent, young 2007 You Belong to Me Robert 2013 All is Bright Man 1
Television Year Title Role Episode 1986 What's Happening Now Howard Season 2: "Picture Perfect" 1986 What's Happening Now Howard Season 2: "Shirley's Little Sister" 1986 CBS Schoolbreak Special Leon "The Drug Knot" 1986 The Drug Knot Leon TV movie 1987 A Year in the Life Co-Star "student" "While Someone Else is Eating or Opening a Window" 1998 Sex and the City Allanne "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" 2018 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Principal Webb "Kimmy Disrupts a Paradigm"
Web series Year Title Role Episode/Notes 2012-13 Child of the '70s Weezy Four episodes: Happy Birthday Darling, Kiki Lawrence, The Wedding, The Wedding Part 2
Broadway Year Show Credit Theatre 1994 Carousel (Broadway Revival) Enoch Snow Jr., and understudy Billy Bigelow Vivian Beaumont Theater 1998 Parade Ensemble, and principle understudy Vivian Beaumont Theater
Off-Broadway Year Show Credit Notes 1992 A Midsummer Night's Dream national tour Francis Flute, Thisby The Acting Company 1993 The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin Louis Chauvin Playwrights Horizons 1993 Motherlode Revolutionary Mabou Mines 1993 Christina Alberta's Father Teddy Vineyard Theatre (workshop) 1999 Civil Sex Bayard Rustin Public Theatre "First Stages" 2000 The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin Larry Grimble, and Keith Playwrights Horizons, world premiere
Regional Stage Year Show Role Notes 1990 Twelfth Night Fabian Berkeley Shakespeare Festival 1990 Cymbeline Philharmonus Berkeley Shakespeare Festival 1990 The Merry Wives of Windsor Fenton Berkeley Shakespeare Festival 1990 Othello Clown Berkeley Shakespeare Festival 1990 The American Clock Rudy Denver Center Theatre Company 1991 Joe Turner's Come and Gone Jeremy Denver Center Theatre Company 1991-92 A Midsummer Night's Dream national tour Francis Flute, Thisby The Acting Company 1992 Riverview Robert Goodman Theatre 1993 Six Degrees of Separation Paul Dallas Theater Center 1995 Insurrection Ron Columbia University, world premiere 1995 A Midsummer Night's Dream Demetrius La Jolla Playhouse 1997 Civil Sex Bayard Rustin Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company 1998 Les Blancs Eric Center Stage, Baltimore 1998 Afterplay Raziel Coconut Grove Playhouse 1999 Blues for an Alabama Sky Guy Virginia Stage Company 2000 Civil Sex Bayard Rustin Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2000 The Odyssey Neoman McCarter Theatre 2000 The Odyssey Neoman Seattle Repertory Theatre 2001 Oresteia Orestes Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2002 Hamlet Laertes Alabama Shakespeare Festival 2002 Much Ado About Nothing Claudio Alabama Shakespeare Festival 2003 Romeo and Juliet Mercutio Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2003 Antony and Cleopatra Pompey, and Eros Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2004 The Story Neil Long Wharf Theatre 2005 The Tempest Ferdinand Shakespeare Theatre Company 2005 Cuttin' Up Various Arena Stage, world premiere 2006 Some Men Angel Eyes Philadelphia Theatre Company, world premiere 2007 Cuttin' Up Various Alliance Theatre 2007 Caravaggio Chiaroscuro Caravaggio La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club 2008 Macbeth Macduff Roust Theatre Company 2009 The Whipping Man John Penumbra Theatre Company 2010 On the Verge Grover, et al. Rep Stage 2012 Shadows Ben Hoi Polloi 2012 Fierce Love Various PomoAfroHomo anniversary tour (New Conservatory Theatre) 2012 All Hands Various Hoi Polloi 2013 Wild With Happy Mo TheatreWorks
Stage Direction Year Show Notes 2008 LOL Algonquin Productions (NY) 2011 Stalag 17 Good Company Players (CA) 2012 Othello Stella Adler Studio (NY) 2013 Home Rep Stage (MD) 2014 The Merry Wives of Windsor Worcester Shakespeare Festival 2015 Cabaret Illinois State University 2015 Fences Illinois State University
Musical Compositions and Librettos Year Show Credit Notes 1987 Bottom's Up: A Musicommedia Music - Duane Boutté, book - Ron Morasco, lyrics - Ron Mohasco, Dwight Smith, Paul Svendson, Luck Hari Produced at UCLA; winner ACTF and ASCAP awards 1988 2002 Lyin' Up a Breeze Book and lyrics - Terry Miller, music - Duane Boutté Produced by Good Company Players, Second Space Theatre 2007 Caravaggio Chiaroscuro Book - Gian Marco Lo Forte, Music - Duane Boutté Produced by LaMama Etc. (2007) 2011 Thanks to the Lighthouse Music and Libretto by Duane Boutté Presented 2011 and 2012 by NYC Parks and Recreation, and Historic House Trust
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