 |
 |
| Craig Tuminaro, a gay architectural historian who lives in Alexandria, Va., portrays
a gay indentured servant on PBS’s ‘Colonial House.’ Jonathon
Allen (left) of Charleston, S.C., also portrays a gay servant on the show.
|
|
|
| |  |
|
‘Colonial House’
WETA
Monday, May 17, at 8 p.m.
Tuesday, May 18, at 8 p.m. |
|
|  |
|  |
|
|
| |  |
HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > TELEVISION
By: Brian Moylan COMMENTS
CRAIG TUMINARO AND Jonathon Allen portray indentured servants on “Colonial
House,” a fascinating eight-part series on PBS that involves having 26
people live by the laws and customs of English colonists in 1628.
What sets Tuminaro and Allen apart from the others, however, is that both
are openly gay — in real life and in their 17th century portrayals on
the show, which debuts at 8 p.m., Monday, May 17, on WETA, a local PBS affiliate.
On “Colonial House,” participants simulate what life must have
been like in the 17th century, using the tools, wearing the clothes, obeying
the laws, and tolerating the punishments to which the first Europeans in the
United States were subjected.
The 26 participants on the show, who were given a small stipend and selected
from a pool of 5,000, have roles on the “Colonial House” as the
ruling governor, free men, as well as indentured servants. They were expected
to play out those roles for five months at a rural site on the coast of Maine.
Coming out in the 17th century did not pose a challenge for Tuminaro, an architectural
historian who lives in Alexandra, Va.
“I told people in exactly the way I wanted to tell them, just as I do
in my modern life,” he says, “[I] didn’t make a huge proclamation
[that I’m gay].”
Tuminaro was part of the second wave of colonists that joined the show after
the first two months, and stayed for the remaining three. His openness, in
part, inspired Allen, 25, who signed on to appear on the series for the full
five months.
Allen, who works at a hotel in Charleston, S.C., came out to the entire colonial
community at one of the mandatory Sunday Sabbath meetings.
“I had been closeted two months and [Tuminaro] told me in the first
five minutes, and I wanted to be that confident,” says Allen, who in
real life is out to his family and some friends, though he says most people
do not know he is gay.
Allen, who is originally from South Carolina, says he grew up in a conservative
Southern Baptist family.
JEFF WYERS, A conservative Southern Baptist minister from Waco, Texas, portrays
the governor of the colony on the show and has autocratic control of the work,
laws and moral standards of the community. He makes some very disparaging remarks
about Allen’s public acknowledgement of his sexual orientation.
Nevertheless, Tuminaro and Allen were allowed to live as openly gay servants
in the colony. In the 17th century, however, Tuminaro said homosexuality was
a crime that was punished harshly, possibly even by death.
“My understanding of the whole concept of self-identification wasn’t
really something that took place in the 17th century,” Tuminaro says. “I
don’t know if there was a punishment for saying that you enjoyed homosexual
behavior, as opposed to someone getting caught in the act.”
Allen says he and the other colonists tried to mirror the time period as honestly
as they could.
“Maybe there wasn’t a guy in 1628 who stood up and said he was
gay, but surely there were gay guys back then,” Allen says. “Because
we don’t have too much [historical evidence] to go on, I think that we
were an honest, 17th-century colony.”
|