Good, because a new reality show will hold open casting calls at Woody’s Bar, 202 S. 13th St., Feb. 23 and 26.
Under The Boardwalk Productions is looking for the next LGBT reality stars for a pilot shooting this spring. The unnamed show will find the cast living in a beach house on the shores of Atlantic City for the coming summer.
Yeah, we know what it sounds like. But this show isn’t trying to be a gay version of “Jersey Shore.”
We hope …
Producer Kate Siegel said early press about the new program has been the source of the comparisons to the aforementioned reality show.
“That’s the way it’s been talked about in headlines but that’s never been the intention,” she said. “You can say that about many reality shows. It’s more like ‘The Real World’ than it is ‘Jersey Shore’ in the sense of we’re putting different-minded people in a house together.”
Siegel, a Princeton University senior and LGBT ally, said she was inspired to put together this new reality show because of the segments of the LGBT population that weren’t being served on television.
“The idea came from the fact that, on all sorts of reality shows today, you have the token guy or the token lesbian,” she said. “I just thought it would be interesting to have a show that represented the LGBT community in its entirety and where it showed people’s identities beyond their sexual orientation on a heterosexual-based reality show. I thought it would be interesting to have a show with an entirely LGBT cast so you can get to know the people underneath that label.”
Kim Friedman, the show’s director and an Emmy-nominated director of prime-time TV shows “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Star Trek Voyager,” “Star Trek Deep Space Nine” and ”L.A. Law,” said they are trying to attract a wide range of LGBT people to the show’s casting calls.
“It’s totally open,” she said. “We’re going to have an open casting call and put together people that really represent all different facets of the community. We’ve already had one audition and we were shocked by how many people came out. We held it at a little club in Hammonton, N.J., Club In or Out. We thought we’d like to start small. Well, the next thing we knew, there were 300 people lined up. It was an amazing evening and we found lots of people.”
“There’s no specific ideas or guidelines,” Siegel said. “We’re just waiting to see who comes in the door and anything we think is going to be compelling.”
Still, Friedman said some who auditioned haven’t fully embraced the idea that this show isn’t going to be anything like “Jersey Shore.”
“We’re not just looking for Italian people,” she said. “A lot of people came in trying to be guidos and guidettes. They were funny and we wouldn’t say no to that. But we’re not looking for that. One of the things that will set us apart is that we thought it would be intriguing to put people together so it wasn’t all just gay men in the house or all lesbians and one gay man. We want to mix it up and see it as a larger community.”
Under the Boardwalk Productions will hold open auditions for its new reality show at 4 p.m. Feb. 23 for individuals 18-20 years old and 2 p.m. Feb. 26 for individuals 21 and older at Woody’s Bar, 202 S. 13th St. All auditions, which consist of a simple videotaped interview, will be held on Woody’s main dance floor. For more information, visit www.woodysbar.com.