By his mid-20s, Larsen had become nationally known as one of the 1990s’ leading playwrights of adults-only gay comedies. His best-known work — “Making Porn,” which featured nude male porn stars — ran 511 performances off-Broadway and was seen worldwide, including in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach.

Now 55, Larsen is the founder and artistic director of Wilton Manors’ nonprofit Plays of Wilton (POW) theater company and helming the musical adaptation of “A Shonda,” a serious love story about a young Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish man and a Southern Baptist cowboy. A shanda (its usual spelling) is Yiddish for a “shame” or “disgrace.”

“They’re deeply in love,” says Larsen. “The play starts with them trying to navigate how they’re going to escape their communities and actually live as a gay couple. But the Hasidic man is married. … He would lose his entire everything. The other man lives in this very redneck, conservative Southern Baptist community. They both have a lot to lose. The Southern Baptist guy has decided that he’s willing to lose it. But the Jewish man cannot make the transition.”

“A Shonda” was written in 2019 by Los Angeles-based playwright Wendy Graf, who gave the OK for Larsen to add songs to her play.

“A year ago, I thought this could be a musical,” says Larsen. “You could have Jewish singing, you could have line dancing, you could have all this imagery.”

South Florida composers and lyricists Bobby Peaco and Dennis Manning (also board president of Plays of Wilton) wrote the songs, and New York City-based Oren Korenblum provided the choreography.

Getting it right

For authenticity, Larsen hired Coral Springs actor Avi Hoffman, president and founder of the Jewish cultural Yiddishkayt Initiative, as a performer and “Jewish consultant.” He plays a Hasidic rabbi in “A Shonda.”

Hoffman, 66, grew up in the Bronx and also in Israel. His father was a Holocaust survivor “who came from a very Orthodox background, but after Auschwitz decided that there was no God,” he says.

Hoffman, who is married to South Florida actor Laura Turnbull, believes “there is an enormous movement within the Orthodox community right now that is shifting and changing …

“And a lot of young people, and older people, not only younger people, are finding that there is another world out there that they didn’t know about really,” he added. “And many of them are coming from the LGBTQ+ community.”

Actor Brandon Campbell, 31, of Miami Lakes, plays Duvid, the Hasidic young man in love with Clay (played by Georgia-based actor Jackson Goad).

“We were childhood friends, Duvid and Clay, the Southern boy,” says Campbell. “It’s really a childhood love story. It’s one of those first-love stories. These two boys have loved each other since they were young, and it never left.”

Campbell isn’t Jewish and says Hoffman has been “an invaluable resource for me for any questions I have, anything that I need to do to just make the authenticity of this character lived in.”

He adds: “That’s really what I try to do as an actor, to make the audience never not believe that I’m not what I’m playing. I am bisexual. Right now, I am in a straight-passing relationship with a girl. I’ve played gay characters, bi characters. And again, it comes down to the authenticity. Love is love.”

Larsen, who became known for writing and directing shows featuring full male nudity and simulated sex scenes, describes “A Shonda” as “family-friendly if you’re comfortable watching two gay men kiss.”

“They don’t kiss a lot, but they do kiss,” he says. “There’s absolutely no nudity. There’s no simulated sex. So, yes, if you’re liberal, you could bring your kids.”

Larsen assures, however, that he’s not abandoning his bawdy past. In August, Plays of Wilton will present the 30th anniversary of his first play, “Scenes From My Love Life,” which he based on his own sex life in the early ’90s.

“It was pre-internet, about phone sex,” he says. “Life before pictures. You’d have to trust that what they described on the phone was going to show up.”

Larsen’s second play, a year later in 1995, was “Making Porn.”

“It was a perfect storm. ‘Making Porn’ hit just when people were really interested in the gay porn industry, and it was pre-internet, so people had never seen a porn star in person,” says Larsen. “And a lot of them had never seen a naked man on stage.”

His early career petered out as gay theater companies began shifting from sexually-oriented programming. Larsen took a 10-year break from the theater and lived in Mexico, where he met and married Melqui Dominguez in 2009.

Discovering Wilton Manors

In 2010, David R. Gordon of Empire Stage theater in Fort Lauderdale presented a sold-out run of “Making Porn.” Larsen was startled to discover nearby Wilton Manors, with its large community of gay men who enjoyed the kind of shows he produced in the 1990s.

Larsen and his husband relocated to Wilton Manors, where he leased a rehearsal space next door to Island City Stage on North Dixie Highway and named it The Foundry.

“The first show we did there was on the cement floor and there were like 20 chairs. And then we added 10 chairs, and 10 more, and then we added another 10. And then we added a wooden floor. And then we expanded the wings. And we moved the light booth.”

During the pandemic, after the for-profit Foundry abruptly shut down, Larsen’s longtime friend and business partner, Caryn Horwitz, a Miami Dade College criminal justice professor, suggested he change his model and create a nonprofit — which led to him founding Plays of Wilton (POW). He reopened The Foundry four months after shuttering.

“My life just keeps changing in Wilton Manors,” Larsen says. “I feel like Wilton Manors — I know this sounds so ‘whatever’ — but I feel like it made me whole. I was able to be a whole person here. Whereas before, I was just like the porn guy who did the sex plays. That’s fine. I embrace that because that’s what I built my career on.

“But it’s been really empowering to be recognized as, ‘Oh, there’s much more to this person than just writing gay sex plays.’”

Awards and Off-Broadway

Since 2022, Plays of Wilton has been nominated for 28 Carbonell Awards, South Florida’s version of the Tony Awards, winning four including the 2023 Howard Kleinberg Award given to Larsen “for contributions to the health and development of the arts in South Florida.”

Larsen says he’s proud to live in a town with “three theaters in one mile” (The Foundry, Island City Stage and Empire Stage) that regularly present LGBTQ programming.

“That is unbelievable. I talk about it all the time,” he says. “They don’t have it in New York. Chicago. London. Nowhere has it.”

Recently, Larsen and POW took one of their productions to Off-Broadway.

“The Actors,” written by and starring Larsen and directed by Stuart Meltzer (producing artistic director of Miami’s Zoetic Stage) ran from April 27 to June 1 at Theatre Row on West 42nd Street in New York City. During that month, about 100 friends from Wilton Manors traveled to New York to see “The Actors,” which had its world premiere in 2022 at The Foundry.

“If you go to the theater, you feel some part of ownership for that theater. It’s literally everyone’s $10. It’s everyone’s this, that and the other that pays for everything that happens there,” says Wilton Manors Commissioner Chris Caputo, who also serves on the POW board. “And so the people that I know that went [to New York], they went feeling like they made this possible.”

Caputo, among those who saw the play in New York, says Larsen constantly promotes Wilton Manors as “a source of awesome theater.”

And Larsen says the people of Wilton Manors always support him, POW and the arts.

“We couldn’t have taken ‘The Actors’ to New York as a commercial production. We did it with underwriting, and people donated to us. We raised $200,000 from this community of people that just wanted to see POW go to New York.”

‘The DeSantis thing’

Larsen says his life is “transformed” daily since becoming part of the Wilton Manors community.

“Even [with] the DeSantis thing. All these people started donating,” he says.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month vetoed $32 million in arts funding throughout the state, including 50 grants in Broward County totaling $2.5 million. Plays of Wilton was set to receive $20,000, according to Larsen.

“This has been a blessing because it infuriated people so much that donations started pouring in,” says Larsen. “People started calling me to say, ‘This is bulls—. I’m sending you $5,000. I’m sending you $10,000.’ We have had a windfall of donations because of the backlash of Ron DeSantis.”

So far, POW has raised more than $45,000 since the grant cuts.

“And more is coming in,” says Larsen. “It’s like, ‘You are not going to cut the arts in Wilton Manors.’ They will not allow it. … That is the story. Wilton Manors is the story. That the gay men and the community of South Florida are supporting the arts. They love theater. That’s the story.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Plays of Wilton presents “A Shonda,” produced and directed by Ronnie Larsen

WHEN: Through Sunday, Sept. 1

WHERE: The Foundry, 2306 N. Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors.

COST: $27.50-$53.50

INFORMATION: 954-826-8790; playsofwilton.com

This story was produced by Broward Arts Journalism Alliance (BAJA), an independent journalism program of the Broward County Cultural Division. Visit ArtsCalendar.com for more stories about the arts in South Florida.

“She was a woman ahead of her time. She was comfortable in her own life,” said Craig Horwich, Marilyn’s son from her first marriage, who spent his teen years living with her and Gleason in the family’s 14-room mansion at Inverrary Country Club in Lauderhill.

Marilyn Taylor was born Oct. 6, 1925, in Chicago, the daughter of Angeline and Percival Taylor and younger sister of June, who had dreams of being a dancer.

After June recovered from tuberculosis in the late 1930s, Marilyn joined her on the road as her assistant. Throughout World War II, “Mom worked for good pay – none,” Horwich said.

In 1946, the June Taylor Girls (from four to eight dancers often featuring Marilyn) got booked into a Baltimore nightclub as “featured dancers.”

“They were not chorus girls,” Horwich said.

Also on the bill: a young comic named Jackie Gleason.

“That’s where Jackie took a shine and noticed Marilyn,” said Horwich, an attorney who co-owns and operates Jackie Gleason Enterprises, along with Gleason’s daughters, Geraldine Chutuk and Linda King.

In 1949, the June Taylor Girls were hired by Ed Sullivan for his New York City-based “Toast of the Town” TV program on CBS. Two years later, Gleason hired the dancers for his DuMont television network variety show, “Cavalcade of Stars.”

In 1952, Gleason’s show moved from the failing DuMont network to CBS. The June Taylor Girls became the June Taylor Dancers.

“That’s when the checkbook opened up,” according to Horwich. “[Jackie] said, ‘Let’s have 16 girls with the overhead cameras and the Rockettes kicks.’ “

Gleason, who had recently separated from his wife, Genevieve, began seeing Marilyn.

“They dated all through the ”50s,” Horwich said. “But Jackie was in a Catholic marriage and divorce wasn’t an option, so the relationship ended.”

Gleason took a break from the variety show format in 1955, when he, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph starred in the iconic 39-episode CBS sitcom “The Honeymooners.”

In the late 1950s, Marilyn ran the June Taylor School of Dance in New York. The dance company also worked with singer Patti Page in her 1957-58 TV variety show, “The Big Record.”

“By the early ’60s, Mom had moved to Chicago and she was running a store called Petite Repeat – a children’s clothing consignment store on Oak Street, the Rodeo Drive of Chicago,” Horwich said.

During a 1960 vacation at the Eden Roc hotel in Miami Beach, Marilyn was introduced to George Horwich, a Chicago wedding and party consultant. It turned out they worked across the street from each other back home and they continued to see each other in Chicago.

Marilyn and George married in May 1962; their son Craig was born the next year.

Throughout the 1960s, the Horwich family often vacationed in Florida and stayed with June Taylor, then choreographer for “The Jackie Gleason Show,” which CBS taped in Miami Beach.

Craig Horwich says that at the time, “I had no idea Mom and Jackie had ever dated.”

George Horwich died of natural causes in 1972.

“Once mom was widowed, we moved to Florida in 1973, to Hallandale,” Horwich said. “When Jackie learned that mom had moved down and had been widowed, he put on a full-court press. The phone would ring and he pursued and rekindled the romance with mom.”

After Gleason divorced his second wife, he and Marilyn married in December 1975.

“By this stage in Jackie’s life, his work was behind him,” Horwich said. “His priority was his home life. It really was with my mom. There weren’t a lot of goings on. It allowed mom to keep a very stable and normal and simple home life for me.”

Marilyn did briefly come out of dance retirement to make a L’eggs hosiery TV commercial with the June Taylor Dancers.

“Marilyn was a fierce tap dancer,” said Mercedes Ellington – granddaughter of Duke and daughter of Mercer – who at that time was also a troupe member and June’s assistant.

“At one point I danced next to Marilyn in the line. It was hysterical. She would be telling me jokes and I was concerned about the routine,” said Ellington, who is founder and president of the nonprofit Duke Ellington Center for the Arts in New York.

The Taylor sisters got along “like Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen in ‘White Christmas,’ ” Ellington said. “They worked very much in sync, but every once in a while you would see a look between them and you never had to ask what it meant.”

Gleason, who was nominated for an Oscar when he starred opposite Paul Newman in 1961’s “The Hustler,” had a movie career renaissance in the late 1970s through mid 1980s. He co-starred with Burt Reynolds and Sally Field in the “Smokey and the Bandit” films, and with Tom Hanks in the 1986 comedy-drama “Nothing in Common.” He died of cancer at 71 in 1987.

“Jackie was a very talented and self-thinking person. He had original ideas and original thoughts,” Marilyn Gleason told the Miami Herald in 2014. “When I first met him, he was that way. I don’t know what made him that way. God. He always had great ideas. Onward and upward. That was his motif.”

Soon after Gleason’s death, Marilyn sold the Inverrary mansion and moved to a Fort Lauderdale Beach penthouse, where she lived the rest of her life.

Marilyn played golf nearly every Wednesday, her son said, and she frequently read at Insight for the Blind in Fort Lauderdale.

“She was a reader here for at least 20 years and contributed over 3,000 hours of volunteer service to the blind and physically handicapped as a narrator of talking books,” said Matt Corey, the organization’s president and CEO.

Horwich said: “She was very content filling her time simply with her or her close friends. She never had the need to be in a relationship. She never dated anyone after Jackie.”

June Taylor died in 2004. Marilyn is survived by her son and stepdaughters.

A private service will be held and Marilyn will be interred beside Gleason in the family crypt at Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery in Miami, and near the graves of June, her husband, Sol Lerner, and their mother, Angeline.

Horwich says Gleason once compared his love affair with Marilyn to a Warner Bros. movie. “It had a perfect, happy ending and everybody fell in love.”

Organizers abruptly announced that the opening and closing ceremonies, along with nearly all of its sports events, were canceled due to financial issues. The shocking revelation came via a short message to participants from the event’s board of directors Friday.

“It is with deep regret that due to financial burdens, World OutGames must cancel its sports programming and Opening and Closing Ceremony with the exception of soccer, aquatics and country western dance,” reads the statement. “The Human Rights Conference and cultural programs will continue as planned. We thank everyone who has supported the effort and apologize to those who will be impacted by this difficult decision.”

“My childhood was miserable in a very specific way because I was trans,” said Bertran, born in 1974 to Cuban parents who named her Alejandro. “It had nothing to do with whether my family was with me or not. They were a great family. I loved them and they continue to love me, but when you’re a trans kid and you can’t live out your life as you see it, I just found myself very, very miserable.”

Find the full story at MiamiHerald.com.

In an 11 a.m. hearing, Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel lifted the legal stay she had placed on her sweeping July decision declaring the ban discriminatory. Clerk of Courts Harvey Ruvin has said he will allow same-sex marriages to begin immediately.

For more, go to The Miami Herald.

“Upon consideration, appellant’s motions to stay briefing are denied,” the Miami-based Third District Court of Appeal said in a terse ruling Thursday.

“That is the best news of the day. We would have been sitting in limbo for an undetermined amount of time,” said attorney Bernadette Restivo, who represents Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones, two Key West bartenders who on July 17 won the right to marry in Monroe County Circuit Court. “Pam Bondi’s stay would have caused enormous irreparable harm to the plaintiffs and others similarly situated. Every day that we move forward in this case will hopefully mean we are moving closer to ending this oppressive discrimination.”

For the full report, visit The Miami Herald.

Late Friday afternoon, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel ordered that six same-sex couples who sued Miami-Dade County Clerk Harvey Ruvin for marriage licenses in January should be allowed to wed.

There will be no weddings yet: In her ruling, Zabel ordered an immediate stay until after the case is appealed.

For the full report, visit

The Miami Herald.

“Anyone who wishes to dress in drag may do so,” Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill wrote in a letter to passengers, adding that anyone still unhappy could cancel travel and receive a full refund including “reimbursement for any non-refundable travel related expenses.”

The Drag Stars at Sea cruise is scheduled to depart PortMiami on Sunday, visit ports throughout the Caribbean and return Dec. 9

Read the full story at miamiherald.com

Inspired by “Sorry, Wrong Number” — the stage and screen thriller about an invalid who overhears plans for her own murder — the seventy minute play follows a high society hypochondriac as she navigates New York’s social scene on what may be the last day of her life. Set in 1989, the show features a number of popular songs from the ’80s.

Brooks Braselman, the L.A. Weekly Award nominee for “Mommie Queerest” who was recently seen in the national tour of “Shut Up, Sweet Charlotte,” stars as Sally Winston, the hairy heiress. Also appearing in “He’s Coming Up the Stairs!” are David R. Gordon (“Making Porn,” “Roll With the Punches”) as Sally’s two-timing husband, along with South Florida newcomers Emily Shaffer and Vance Barber.

“We’re excited to perform “He’s Coming Up the Stairs!” for the Fort Lauderdale theater audiences,” said Garet Scott, playwright. “When the show ran at the Duplex in New York, the audiences were in hysterics. I think our cast is even stronger now. This is a silly little comedy — perfect for summer.”

If You Go

“He’s Coming Up the Stairs!” is scheduled through Aug. 15 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale. During the run of the show, the troupe will be dedicating some dark nights to a series of staged readings. For a complete list of performances and readings with dates and times, go to empirestage.com or call 954-678-1496.