The LGBT community's most eagerly awaited television event comes to small screens with the Feb. 27 premiere of When We Rise, an all-star docudrama about the early days of San Francisco's equality movement. The eight-hour miniseries will air over the course of four nights on ABC. Based in part on longtime activist Cleve Jones' same-named memoir and in part on a screenplay by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, When We Rise recalls the birth of the local community's first gay activist organizations. The story spans decades of LGBT history and includes the assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978, the AIDS epidemic of the following decade, and beyond.
Australian film star Guy Pearce stars as the older Cleve Jones, with Austin P. Mackenzie appearing as the younger Cleve. Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg plays Pat Norman, an African American lesbian who ran for Board of Supervisors during the 1980s, while Rosie O'Donnell appears as Del Martin, who co-founded Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization in US history. Glee's Kevin McHale will be seen as Bobbi Campbell, an AIDS activist who appeared on the cover of Newsweek in 1983, the year before he died. Michael K. Williams will play Ken Jones, an organizer for the African American gay community, while Carrie Preston will essay the role of lesbian activist Sally Gearhart, a close ally of Harvey Milk's.
"It's very important to remind ourselves how hard-won equality is, and how easily dismantled it can be," co-star Rachel Griffiths told the B.A.R., speaking from her home in Australia. The actress portrays Diane Jones, a nurse at SF General Hospital who treated early AIDS patients.
"She was one of the first nurses at the AIDS ward," Griffiths said of her character. "Her courage was going to work. Not everyone changes the world via megaphone. Some change the world quietly."
At a time when the world was afraid to touch people with AIDS, Jones embraced them. "This was a time when hospital orderlies wouldn't take food into patients' rooms," Griffiths said. "It was hysteria."
"We've been coasting," Griffiths said of the past few years. "We are now waking up to the ramifications of being politically complacent. Hopefully this production will inspire people to stand up."
"It's important to tell LGBT stories," writer Dustin Lance Black, who also directed one episode, told the B.A.R. "This is a story where we don't die at the end. We're now at the stage where we can be presented as whole human beings and survive. It's a message we can send to our kids."
Black feels that the stories in When We Rise take on greater meaning in the current political climate. "I would give anything in this world for this to be less necessary," he said. "The words of division coming from our federal government are taking their toll on our youth. Those stoking fear have blood on their hands."
Black hopes that When We Rise will open the hearts and minds in conservative parts of the country. "I wrote it for all our country and all its peoples. I'm very proud of the work we've done in the writer's room. We speak a language that both Americas will understand."
Milk director Gus Van Sant directed the first episode of When We Rise. "It's sort of avant-garde to say that this will play on ABC," he said. "It will be seen across America, not just on HBO or Netflix. On a more mainstream channel it will go to places it couldn't otherwise go."
Van Sant feels that the series, which spans across four decades, will be thrilling for viewers. "Watching the characters evolve over the years is one of the series' strengths," he said. "People in San Francisco will recognize their stories and issues. People in small towns may react in a smaller way."
Historical incidents from New York City will be mentioned, such as the Stonewall Riots, but the series will remain primarily in San Francisco. "Cleve goes to an ACT UP meeting in New York," he said. "We'll also see some of the characters' hometown pasts."
Black hopes that seeing When We Rise will bring people from different communities together. "Communities of diversity must come together. Not just LGBTs, all communities. If we are divided, if we are only interested in our own issues we could lose our rights. Together we are unstoppable."
When We Rise premiere: Mon., 2/27; Parts II & III: Wed., 3/1; Parts IV & V: Thurs., 3/2; Parts VI & VII: Fri., 3/3.