Vive la différence!

by Jim Gladstone

“It’slike throwing a baby in a pool!” said Christine Heesun Hwang, 24, describing the experience of leaving Ithaca College midway through her undergraduate studies to jump into the cast of an in-progress national tour of “Miss Saigon” in 2019.

Haley Dortch, 21, began her professional life with similar splash, departing the University of Michigan after sophomore year to play Fantine in the latest touring production of “Les Miserables,” which opens an engagement at the Orpheum Theater on July 5. Old-timer Hwang is also in the cast, playing Éponine.

The two queer actors of color spoke to the Bay Area Reporter by phone last week about beginning their work lives in constant motion.

“I was learning how to live on the road at the same time I was learning how to just be an adult at all,” recalled Hwang of the few months she spent traveling with “Miss Saigon” before the pandemic sent her new career into unexpected intermission.

“I’d never had to think about a 401K

Queer actors of color in “Les Misérables” at the Orpheum

or housing or insurance. I really got those lessons on my feet.”

Hwang said that during the time she spent with her family in Seattle during the shutdown, the fact that she’d fulfilled a longtime dream of becoming a professional actor really sunk in with her.

“On the road, you’re so tired that it’s easy to forget that you’ve been given this amazing opportunity. I also got back in touch with why I was doing it in the first place and how much I love the theater. I spent so much time on the internet going down these crazy rabbit holes of fandom. I also had a chance to sit with myself and think about the kind of life I hope to lead in the next few years.”

Setting an example

Hwang, who has been out since she was 16, has realized that she can use her platform as a performer to reach out to kids, particularly AsianAmericans, whose family dynamics can make coming out – and careers in the arts – feel particularly challenging.

In the program for “Les Misérables,” she pointedly identifies herself as “a queer Korean American.”

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“I put it in my bio to try and make a little difference. To let younger people know that you can be queer; that you can make a career out of performing. A lot of people forget how difficult it can be for kids in some of these smaller cities we visit,” said Hwang about a tour with stops that include Appleton, Wisconsin; Lincoln, Nebraska; and El Paso, Texas.

“I really admire Christine for doing that,” said Dortch, who spent her own childhood in Texas. “I wish I did more. It’s something I’m trying to navigate, because I’m a new member of the queer community. I’ve known at least since I was in high school, but I just came out to my parents last June, just a few months before the tour started. But I look forward to creating more space for young queer artists as my career progresses.”

Settling into one’s identity while living an itinerant lifestyle is doubtless a challenge.

From page 15

Those questions became the dramaturgical spine of his musical “In Hell With Jesus,” because he found that most people preferred that option. The American version of this show will premiere at La Mama in New York this coming fall. When he performs in Berkeley, he will be performing some of the songs from this musical.

Dimchev is a huge Elton John fan, and even wrote a song about his idol. As a kid in Bulgaria, John was his only gay role model and was a source of support for him. He didn’t have it easy as a gay kid in Bulgaria.

“Having Elton John as somebody who I connect with musically and emotionally, but also on a queer level for me, was really helpful,” he said. “Even if he doesn’t hear it (the song), I’m happy to have it and to sing it.”

He hopes that the Elton John song will be ready to be performed in Berkeley.

He says that things have gotten better for gay kids in Bulgaria. Nowadays schoolteachers are obliged to support kids who experience aggression directed toward them.

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“I was so frustrated that all of the Pride activities in the cities we’ve been touring have been during times we’re on stage,” said Dortch. “But in Seattle, the apartment building where I was staying had a Pride brunch, so I got a bunch of friends from the cast to come over and we made it into our celebration.

“The cast is one of the few things that keep me rooted,” said Dortch.

“And about two months ago, while I was at home on a vacation, I adopted a dog, a mini golden doodle, and now he’s on tour with me. That’s really a cozy comfort for me.”

Dortch says it’s ironic that “Les Misérables” marks her professional debut.

“For my sixth grade talent show audition, I sang ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ and didn’t get to be in the show. And now I’m singing it eight times a week!”

Both Hwang and Dortch feel for- tunate to have interests beyond acting that help them pass time on the road.

“I really pride myself on my writing,” said Hwang, who is committed to both her own free-form journaling and several playwriting projects, including collaborating with a friend, composer Adam Rothenberg, on a musical about wildfires.

“I’m lucky that writing requires such isolation and monastic focus. I’m actually an introvert when I’m not on stage.”

Dortch, who also enjoys having plenty of downtime alone, is a hardcore reader. She recently tackled a tome that she suspects most of her cast mates have never read: Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.”t

‘Les Misérables,’ July 5-23. $60.50$372.00. Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.broadwaysf.com

Extravagant

“Back then, forty years ago, they were not obliged to support you,” he said. “I had a difficult time as a kid, not as being gay, but as being extravagant. But for me it was the same thing. My queerness was coming out in the way I behaved, the way I dressed. I was not fitting any norms, and it was part of my queerness. It was so difficult for them to accept it as normal so of course my environment was very aggressive towards me. When I was twelve I went to a theater school where my extravagance and my strange way of reacting and expressing myself was found good and creative. It was tolerated and encouraged.”

These days, things are much easier for him because he’s well known. In Bulgaria he’s respected as an artist.

“I have beautiful love songs in Bulgarian that many people relate to, besides my weird songs about food and cock-sucking,” he said. “I am the only Bulgarian who is openly HIVpositive. My HIV status is open, and I’m the only one who talks about this in the media. To the majority of the Bulgarian audience I am very, very out of the box. Being HIV-positive makes me even more strange, but thank God there are enough intelligent people who are okay with it.”

Most HIV-positive people in Bulgaria are fearful about coming out. They think that being open about their status will cost them their careers or their personal lives. But Dimchev has no such concerns because he doesn’t consider himself a Bulgarian artist. His stage is global.

“I feel good about who I am,” he said. “But it’s important for me to be accepted by Bulgarian audiences because I’d like to educate them. I’d like to be an example of somebody who’s free, somebody who’s brave enough to cross boundaries and play with them and just be gay and be happy. I think they need this example and I don’t think I have something to lose by being honest about it. I don’t think I even have a choice.”t