Last weekend, Room 120 of the List Art Building transformed into a rave, where fictional seniors from a Catholic boarding school indulged in illicit drugs and secret love affairs. Later, the scene shifted into a solemn church confessional, as a queer boy knelt before a priest, pleading for absolution.
For Bryce Gray ’25, a senior concentrating in music and modern culture and media, producing “bare: a pop opera” as his senior thesis reflected both his musical journey — showcasing genres from gospel to pop to R&B — and the deeply personal narrative of queer self-emergence.
The off-Broadway musical written by Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere Jr., follows the triumphs and obstacles of students navigating the complexities of sexuality, Catholic principles and challenging social dynamics in their last semester of high school.
Most prominently, the show centers around the love story between Jason — a popular and closeted male athlete — and his boyfriend Peter, who longs to openly embrace his queerness.
“There’s a lot of emotional whiplash,” Gray said. “It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry and it’ll make you angry.”
Gray found himself hooked on musical theater after making his debut in sixth grade as a bookseller in “Beauty and the Beast.” At Brown, he has performed in musical theater productions every semester since fall 2021 and has been featured in roles such as Angel in “RENT” and Georg in “Spring Awakening.”
Watching Elise Aronson ’23 and Ethan Mullen ’23 stage a production of “Into the Woods” for their joint senior capstone project inspired Gray to pursue a musical as his thesis.
He stumbled upon “bare: a pop opera” when he was looking for a specific show for his thesis, recalling when he sang one of Peter’s solos, “Role of a Lifetime,” three years earlier during a voice class in high school.
“It related a lot to my own struggles with dealing with the balance of my religion and my sexuality at the time,” he said. “It was the most I’d ever seen that represented on stage and in a show before.”
In producing the show, Gray said he hoped to create a safe space to address sensitive subjects like body image, substance abuse and gender identity among adolescents. “It showcases how important it is to have people to rely on,” he said. “No one has to feel alone in their struggles.”
At the helm of an independent student production, Gray’s team encountered a series of logistical and financial challenges, including difficulties reserving an auditorium and acquiring performance rights. But Gray resolved these concerns with a GoFundMe campaign, and the help of the music department and faculty advisors Dana Gooley, professor of music, and Ivan Tan ’09, lecturer in music.
Before casting the show, Gray recruited his own production team and reached out to Dasha Dmitrieva ’27 to direct the show. Last spring, Dmitrieva directed the production of the musical “Wish You Were Here,” which featured Gray as the lead performer. Dmitrieva quickly grew fond of the diverse range of characters in “bare: a pop opera” and gladly accepted, she told The Herald.
“Bare: a pop opera,” is a story that “shows the darker side of Catholicism — what values it can instill in adult people, and what it could do to a self image of a young person who's troubled, who's looking for guidance and who believes that God cannot accept him as he is,” Dmitrieva said.
As such, while approaching the directing process for the show, Dmitrieva prioritized depicting the show’s religious themes with respect and avoided painting religion in a negative light, she said. At the same time, she aimed to balance the sensitive topics in queer identity. In addition to listening to the musical’s soundtrack, Dmitrieva read the Bible over winter break to prepare for directing the show.
To authentically represent the show’s characters, Dmitrieva also practiced grounding exercises with cast members, prompting them to create fake memories for their character.
In one scenario, Dmitrieva asked Tony Fusco ’28, who plays Lucas Carter, to imagine a happy memory highlighting the importance of friendship between his character and Jason, complete with sensory details like the snacks they ate while playing video games.
Noah Martinez ’27, who played Peter Simonds, said he initially struggled to configure a character whose story closely mirrored his own. Yet, with support from Gray and Dmitrieva, Martinez said he gradually opened up, embracing the role of Peter with greater ease and authenticity.
“There's the specific part where I sing ‘See Me’... a song where I'm just on the phone with my mom, and I'm trying to get her to listen to the fact that I'm gay, and she just won't,” Martinez said. “There were moments like that in the show where I was reminded of my own life and reminded of personal experiences and fears that I had growing up ever since I was a little kid.”
“At the end of the day, queer stories have always been told, (and) are going to keep being told,” Gray said. “Like the decades of history that have been set up, we are always going to be here, and we are going to make sure that these stories don't get erased.”
Clarification: This article has been updated to more closely reflect Dmitrieva's intentions in directing "bare: a pop opera."
