Words: Will Stroude
Strap yourselves in because Patti LuPone has officially joined the cast of Pose season two – because an ’80-set show about New York’s drag ball scene wasn’t already gay enough, apparently.
The stage and screen legend, who is currently appearing in the West End revival of Steven Sondheim’s Company, will appear in a recurring guest role during the second series of Ryan Murphy’s acclaimed drama, which is expected to premiere Stateside in June.
Murphy revealed the news during the Pose panel at PaleyFest on Saturday (23 March), teasing that LuPone is set to share plenty of scenes with lead actress MJ Rodriguez, who plays house mother Blanca Evangelista.
“We’ve come up with this great role for Patti LuPone. She loves the show and we wrote this part and she said, ‘Yes, I want to do it,’ so she’s coming to play with us in a couple weeks,” Murphy told the audience.
Two-time Grammy and Tony Award-winner LuPone has previously made appearances in Ryan Muprhy shows includuing Glee and American Horror Story: Coven, and whatever character she does play, you can bet it probably won’t be the shy and retiring type.
Pose co-creator Steven Canals also teased more details about what fans can expect from the show’s second season ahead of Saturday’s event in New York, revealing it will set in 1990, eighteen months after the events of the first season.
The writer, who discusses the show alongside stars Biilly Proter and Dominique Jackson in the Attitude Body Issue – available to download and to order globally now – told Variety: “We now get sort of reacquainted with these characters because the year-and-a-half has now passed.
“It’s fun to explore what has happened in the past two years, and how are they the person that they are presenting now? We were able to research what was happening in 1990 and lean into how New York had changed.”
He continued: “This second season we are really leaning into the HIV/AIDS epidemic much more so than we did in the first season. Obviously it loomed heavy in the first season, but we see the real-world consequences much more in the second season.
“We’re also talking about access to medical care and what does that mean to be positive and be black or be Latin and not have access?
“To explore life and death in that way is exciting as a storyteller and also scary because you know the audience has expectations, and they fall in love with these characters.”
Season one of Pose is currently airing in the UK on Thursday nights at 9pm on BBC Two – but if you can’t wait to get your fix, all eight episodes are currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer now.
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