Writer-Director-Actor Leah McKendrick (Scrambled): "If Nothing Is Real, You Have To Be The Real Thing"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Release Date: 07/04/2025
Ellen Geer (Co-Director of Strife):"You Can Make Cities Out Of Mud"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-director-producer Ellen Geer who is the Producing Artistic Director of one of Dennis's favorite spots in Los Angeles, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topange Canyon. Dennis has been going to see plays at the outdoor amphitheater since the early 90's and has seen Ellen perform in scores of shows there as well as seeing just as many that she directed and produced. This season, she co-directed the play Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer John Galsworthy. The show, about a labor strike in rural Pennsylvania, was written in the early 1900's but feels like...
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Queer Authors Panel at Pride Live Hollywood
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
A few weeks back, Dennis was invited to moderate a Queer Authors Panel at the first-ever Pride Live Hollywood festival. The panel was so fun, interesting and, in a few instances, downright dishy, that Dennis thought it would make a great podcast. The authors featured are Nancy Beverly (Shelby’s Vacation), Curtis Chin, (Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant), Jim Colucci (Golden Girls Forever), Frank DeCaro (Disco: Music, Movies, and Mania Under the Mirror Ball), Alonso Duralde, (Hollywood Pride), Rasheed Newson, (My Government Means to Kill Me), Mark B. Perry (And...
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Filmmaker-Performer Juan Pablo Di Pace (Before We Forget): "It's A Russian Doll Kind of Movie"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom from Los Angeles by Juan Pablo Di Pace, the writer, co-director and star of the new film Before We Forget. The film is about an Argentinian film director in his 40s named Matias (played by Di Pace) who's struggling to finish a movie he's making based on his first love, 25 years ago, when he was a student at an international boarding school in Northern Italy. The movie is inspired by Juan Pablo's own experience at the same school where they shot the film, the United World College in Duino, Italy. Juan Pablo talks about the challenges he faced getting the film made,...
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Writer-Director-Actor Leah McKendrick (Scrambled): "If Nothing Is Real, You Have To Be The Real Thing"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by his dance class friend and rising star, writer-director-actor Leah McKendrick to talk about her breakout comedy from last year Scrambled as well as this month's reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which she has a story credit on. Leah talks about how Scrambled was inspired by her own journey of freezing her eggs as single woman in her 30's, how she was able to get the film made, the challenge of wearing so many hats on the project and how audiences would often want to hold and comfort her after seeing the movie. She also talks about her realization that if...
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Filmmaker Fernando Andrès & Actor-Producer Jacob Roberts (Rent Free): "Film Is My Religion"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by two of the men behind his favorite indie of the year so far Rent Free, co-writer and director Fernando Andrès and actor-producer Jacob Roberts. The film is about two queer, down-on-their-luck best friends Ben (Roberts) and Jordan (played by David Trevino) who hatch a plan to live rent free for a year in Austin, Texas--on friends' sofas or whatever they can fanagle--while they save up to move to New York City to pursue their dreams. Fernando talks about his goal of making a buddy comedy set in a bleak contemporary economic landscape focusing on a kind of queer...
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Author & Photographer Frankie Frankeny (Love: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality): "We Need To Go From Fear To Fierce"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Just as we're hitting the 10th Anniversary of Federal Marriage Equality in the US, Dennis is joined via Zoom by Frankie Frankeny, the driving creative force behind the gorgeous and comprehensive new coffee table book Love: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality. Frankie recalls how she first became passionate about the cause of marriage equality decades ago, doing entensive research for the book and discovering stories she never knew before and her hope that the book will be available in schools so queer kids can learn their history in a way that her generation never did. She also talks...
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Documentary subject Kellie Maloney (Knockout Blonde): "I’ve Mixed The Good Of Frank With The Good Of Kellie And Became A Much Better Person"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom from Portugal by former U.K. boxing manager Kellie Maloney to discuss the new documentary about Kellie's life and transition Knockout Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story. The film, which is now available on VOD, documents her previous life as successful boxing promoter Frank Maloney through her transition to Kellie in 2014 and its aftermath. Kellie talks about falling in love with boxing as a child, taking Lennox Lewis all the way to the Heavyweight Champion, how the physicality of boxing allowed her to vent the stress she was feeling inside and that time Frank...
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Broadway producer and author Jeffrey Seller (Theater Kid): "Write That Letter & Make That Call"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
In this special Tonys week episode, Dennis is joined via Zoom by Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller to discuss his book Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir, which documents his journey from a childhood of family dysfunction and always feeling like an outsider to thriving as a Broadway producer with four Best Musical Tonys to his credit (Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton). Jeffrey talks about why he decided to write the book, the elementary school teacher who saw what was special in him, always having the self belief to take big swings and confessing his love to his college best friend, who...
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Frank DeCaro & Jim Colucci (co-programmers of Pride Live!Hollywood): "You Know What Sparks Joy? Clutter!"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined by his friends and past podcast guests Frank DeCaro and Jim Colucci to talk about a brand new arts festival they are co-programming. It's called Pride Live! Hollywood and it takes place June 11th through the 29th at various venues in Hollywood. JIm and Frank talk about the various events on the agenda, including a Norman Lear tribute, a screening and party of Saturday Night Fever with director John Badham and actress Donna Pescow attending, a Golden Girls tribute, the Where The Bears Are documentary A Big Fat Hairy Hit. a Queer as Folk cast reunion as well as screenings...
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Playwright Tom Jacobson (Tasty Little Rabbit): "There Are So Many Stories Out There Waiting To Be Found"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by playwright Tom Jacobson whose latest play Tasty Little Rabbit is currently showing at the Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles. The play tells the true story of a 1936 Fascist Italian investigation of pornography charges in Taormina, Sicily. This artistic prosecution uncovers a much darker secret of a 1890s love triangle between photographer Wilhelm Von Gloeden, an a 18 year-old Sicilian boy and a mysterious Irish poet. Tom talks about how he first learned of the true story, visiting Sicily as part of his research, the riveting "Kissing Contest" scene at the play's...
info_outlineDennis is joined via Zoom by his dance class friend and rising star, writer-director-actor Leah McKendrick to talk about her breakout comedy from last year Scrambled as well as this month's reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which she has a story credit on. Leah talks about how Scrambled was inspired by her own journey of freezing her eggs as single woman in her 30's, how she was able to get the film made, the challenge of wearing so many hats on the project and how audiences would often want to hold and comfort her after seeing the movie. She also talks about her realization that if she wanted her Hollywood dreams to come true that she had to start creating her own projects. She also talks about bursting into tears when she saw Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar on the set of Last Summer because she was such a superfan of the original. Other topics include: writing Harry Shum Jr. a love letter to ask him to appear as "the one who got away" in Scrambled, how she was able to score Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club" for the film before it was everywhere, writing and performing scenes featuring bad sex, being a Britney-obsessed pop girlie through and through and falling in love with a man she met on Hinge, getting engaged and becoming the kind of wedding-obsessed woman she made fun of in Scrambled.