'Can I Be Frank?' Returns to SoHo Playhouse

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Can I Be Frank?" Returns to SoHo Playhouse

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Date: May 21, 2026
Episode Theme:
A deep dive into Morgan Basakis’s one-person show "Can I Be Frank?"—an excavation of the life and work of the late comedian Frank Maya, one of the first openly gay men in mainstream stand-up, and a meditation on art, legacy, queer history, and the ongoing resonance of the AIDS crisis.

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Episode Overview

Host Alison Stewart interviews Morgan Basakis about the revival and creative evolution of "Can I Be Frank?", a solo theatrical work blending archival investigation, personal obsession, and performance. The conversation explores Frank Maya’s impact as an early openly gay comic, Basakis’s process of channeling and honoring Maya, the play’s inventive stagecraft, and the enduring political relevance of AIDS crisis storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Discovering Frank Maya and the Spark for the Show

• Basakis first learned about Frank Maya in January 2023 after randomly meeting Maya’s brother ([03:37]).
• YouTube archive as resource: Basakis found digitized videos of Maya’s performances uploaded by Neil Greenberg, Frank’s ex-partner—who became a collaborator and source of insight ([03:52]).
• The obsession with Maya’s story and artistic mission grew from there, culminating in the stage show marking the 30th anniversary of Maya’s death.

2. Understanding Frank Maya’s Comedy and Its Importance

• Frank Maya’s purpose:

  • “There’s this desire to be seen…and to delight others and to be delighted in that I think so many of us can relate to. He had that compulsion to make people laugh and to be alone on stage…” – Morgan Basakis ([04:29])
  • Maya’s work both reflected and subverted the mainstream, pushing queer presence onto hostile stages during the height of the AIDS crisis.

• Why being the first openly gay comic mattered:

  • “It was 1987, and there's a literal national gay panic…Comedy [then] was a bastion for white supremacy and homophobia…It was a huge deal for him to be on national television that same year and to get to tell his story and be revealing.” – Basakis ([06:13])
  • Basakis jokes about the absurdity and necessity of being “the first openly gay something” in that era.

3. Frank Maya as Multidisciplinary Artist

• Not just a comedian: Maya was also an “amazing visual artist” whose work lives on in the Visual Aids Archive ([05:25]).
• Signature set design: Maya’s backdrop—a giant life preserver—was lovingly recreated for Basakis’s show, symbolizing both rescue and connection across queer generations ([18:03]).

4. The Performance: Blending Maya and Basakis

• The show weaves together Maya’s original material (“monologues, rants, and songs”) and Basakis’s own performative interruptions.
• Blurring authorship:
  • “Eventually in the show…you start to get a little confused. Where’s my work and where’s his?” – Basakis ([12:05])
• Morgan’s onstage persona is described as “a heightened Persona. Kind of delusional, narcissistic, maybe. Well-intentioned, but certainly powerless over their own ambition.” ([09:55])

5. Comedy, Narcissism, and Interconnectedness

• The play is also a meditation on solo performance and the illusion of self-contained originality—“for the Morgan character to move beyond the sense of being an individual…acknowledging that we’re all deeply derivative and constituted by one another.” – Basakis ([10:23])

6. Process, Direction, and Stagecraft

• Director Sam Pinkleton’s core advice:
  • “You have to earn the gravity. You gotta earn the sincerity. You have to earn the message.” ([15:57])
  • Aim: To balance ‘gravity and levity’ (Mary Poppins “spoonful of sugar” model), making radical history accessible and engaging ([15:57]).
• The iconic mic cord:
  • It becomes both prop and metaphor: “this kind of umbilical cord, this kind of across generations…passing down the mic…and we have this need that we don’t even know…to get on stage and try to make people laugh.” ([16:54])

7. Musicality and Frank’s Legacy

• Both Maya and Basakis sing in their shows—Basakis: “He had a song called God is Busy, a song called Too Nervous…The songs resonated with the kind of songs I make. I have a song about seltzer…tied to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.” ([18:55])
• Singing preserves Maya’s multidisciplinary approach and injects further humor and emotional range.

8. Humor and Seriousness—Striking the Balance

• Basakis keeps the emotional “chord taut”:
  • “I like the feeling of constantly zigzagging the audience…to remind us that we don't need to take ourselves that seriously and we can really care about something.” ([20:47])

9. Political Commitments and Activism

• Basakis blends artistry and activism—speaking out (on air) against the war in Gaza, drawing through-lines from AIDS activism to today’s movements against racism and war ([14:51]).
• Honoring legacies: Cites Douglas Crimp and his essay “Mourning and Militancy” as key to understanding the queer activist tradition ([20:06]).

10. The Ongoing AIDS Crisis—Why Remembering Matters

• “The AIDS crisis, as my friend and hero Gregg Bordowitz says, is still beginning. The AIDS crisis is not over…The attack on public health…The attack on LGBT people, on queer and trans people…This crisis is just beginning. And our responsibility is to honor those we have lost and continue their fight for a future where everybody has quality health care and a society that values life over profit.” – Basakis ([21:32])

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On meeting Frank Maya’s world:
  • “Today is actually 30 years since Frank died… I’m very honored to get to talk about him and do this show and meet with you today.” – Basakis ([03:52])
• On being the ‘first’:
  • “It’s almost like a joke to have to be the first openly gay something, honestly. Yeah, exactly. Like I’m the first openly gay person to get a… whatever, a matcha this morning.” – Basakis ([06:13])
• Frank Maya, 1987 rant, satirizing American food corporatization:
  • “Kill those grandmas. Kill, kill, kill those grandmas… Find them and kill them. That’s what the interoffice memo from Duncan Hines said… We’re looking for young kids, young American kids who drink NutraSweet, who have no idea whatsoever what homemade tastes like.” – Frank Maya archive clip ([07:46])
• On artistic legacy:
  • “We’re all deeply derivative and constituted by one another.” – Basakis ([10:23])
• On the importance of balancing art and message:
  • “You have to earn the gravity. You gotta earn the sincerity. You have to earn the message…” – Basakis, quoting director Pinkleton ([15:57])
• On AIDS activism’s ongoing relevance:
  • “The AIDS crisis is not over… The attack on public health in this country is terrifying… Our responsibility is to make sure to honor those we have lost and to continue their fight.” – Basakis ([21:32])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:37] – Basakis describes discovering Frank Maya
• [04:29] – Basakis on Maya’s comedic mission
• [06:13] – Discussion on why being openly gay onstage was radical
• [07:46] – Frank Maya’s “kill those grandmas” monologue (archive audio)
• [09:55] – On the “Morgan” stage persona
• [12:05] – Integrating Maya’s material and Basakis’s own art
• [15:57] – Director’s advice: “earn the gravity”
• [16:54] – The mic cord as metaphor and choreography
• [18:03] – Recreating the life preserver set
• [18:55] – Incorporating Maya’s and Basakis’s music
• [20:06] – List of other important queer artists and writers cited in the show
• [21:32] – Why the AIDS crisis must stay in the public conversation

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Recommended Further Exploration (per Basakis)

• Artists/Activists to Research:
  • Ron Vawter, Cookie Mueller, Chloe Zub, Reza Abdoh, Frederick Weston, Ray Navarro, Charles Ludlum, Douglas Crimp.
• Douglas Crimp, "Mourning and Militancy"
  • A foundational text for queer political thought and AIDS memory.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is lively, thoughtful, witty, and personal—a blend as earnest and irreverent as Maya’s own legacy. Both Stewart and Basakis keep the tone nimble, moving between history, craft, humor, and activism.

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Conclusion

This episode serves as both tribute and call to action: honoring the queer creative pioneers lost to AIDS, celebrating acts of artistic recovery, and insisting on the political urgency of telling—and retelling—these stories on New York City stages today.
"Can I Be Frank?" runs at SoHo Playhouse through June 27th.

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For more information about the show or to listen to this segment, visit WNYC All Of It show page.

Transcript

[Progressive Insurance/Odoo Announcer]

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We hope you enjoyed our Broadway on the Radio event last hour featuring the cast and creative team behind Cats, the Jellicle Ball. If you missed any of it and want to see more, check out the YouTube video on our show page and share it with the Broadway lovers in your life. Next month we'll gather again in the green space with the team behind the Outsiders, so stay tuned for more Broadway on the Radio updates. For the second hour of today's show, we'll be talking about a play, a documentary and an Olivet Book Club event that you can catch in the coming days and weeks ahead. Later in the hour, we'll talk about the film Ask E. Jean about the legal battles that journalist and Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll has pursued. Director Ivy Maripol talks about working with Carroll on the film. And then we'll preview this month's get lit event next week with author Tom Parotta about his book Ghost Town. The event is next Wednesday. You can head to wnyc.org getlit for ticket availability or to RSVP for the live stream. Now, without further ado, let's hear about a one man show that's back on at Soho Playhouse starting today. Performer Morgan Basakis starred in the one person show called Can I Be Frank? Frank refers to Frank Maya, a writer, comic provocateur, singer and storyteller who was about to hit the big time when he died of heart related failure due to AIDS. He was 45. In his obituary, the New York Times wrote that he was one of the first openly gay male comics to gain a foothold in mainstream stand up comedy. It was a Short blurb. However, Maya's talent was much bigger and sadly forgotten, except for a few people, including Morgan Basakis. Frank spoke to Morgan's soul, which you can see in this 70 minute, one person show. It's about Frank, Maya, but it's also about Morgan's work to tell his story, getting the staging right, showing what it's like to be your own prop person, and making sure the audience comes to appreciate Frank Maja and. And to appreciate Morgan, too. Can I be Frank is back at Soho Playhouse as of tonight. You can catch it there until June 27th. When Morgan joined me to talk about the show. I started by asking him how he first learned about Frank. Maya.

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I remember exactly. It was January in 2023, and I tell this story in the show. I just happened to meet his brother, actually, and. And it sort of began this obsession that I have that this show is really the culmination of.

[Interviewer/Host]

So you went to the YouTube?

[Morgan Basakis]

I went to the YouTube. I went to the YouTube, as we do, and I was so grateful to find all these videos that who I would later find out was one of Frank's exes had digitized and whose name is Neil Greenberg, who's kind of a figure in the show and amazing choreographer and amazing person who's really welcomed me into his life and into Frank's life. And today is actually 30 years since Frank died today. So I'm very honored to get to talk about him and do this show and meet with you today.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thank you.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

What was the purpose of Frank's work, of his comedy? When you think about it, after watching all those videos, what was the purpose?

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, wow. Well, I think there's this, like, desire to be seen, you know, and there's this desire to delight others and to be delighted in that I think so many of us can relate to. And I think, you know, he had that. He had that compulsion to make people laugh and to be alone on stage, which is a particular kind of compulsion, you know, or pathology that I share too. And, you know, he joked that he was trying to make the world safe for him and that, you know, he was using his own story to kind of. To get his story out there and I think to make more space for all of us.

[Interviewer/Host]

What was something that the rest of us don't know about Frank, that, you know about Frank? After watching all the video and doing all the research.

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, wow.

[Interviewer/Host]

Or maybe somebody's told you about it.

[Morgan Basakis]

Maybe someone's told me so many good stories. Well, the thing I love That I actually don't talk about in the show. He was an amazing visual artist. And, I mean, he painted the backdrop in the show, this big life preserver. But he made all these incredible kind of paintings almost in a style of cartoon. And a lot of them are in the archive at Visual Aids, an organization that honors and tends to the work of artists living with HIV and AIDS and also who we lost to the crisis.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's weird because everything I read about him and I went online and I went into the archives, they all have this line about the first openly gay comedian.

[Morgan Basakis]

Right.

[Interviewer/Host]

It seems almost silly, right? But really for the youngins or for people out there, like, you really need to think about it. Why was it such a big deal?

[Morgan Basakis]

Right? It's such a good. Yeah. And I appreciate. It's almost like a joke to have to be the first openly gay something, honestly. Yeah, exactly. Like I'm the first openly gay person to get a. Whatever, a matcha this morning, I think. I mean, it was 1987, and there's a literal national gay panic going on. And we're in this particularly terrifying moment of the AIDS crisis in which gay people are being totally vilified. And comedy is really, like, especially at that point, a real bastion for white supremacy and homophobia and transphobia. And it was a really big deal for any comedian who's not straight, white man to be getting that mic. And so it was a huge deal for him to get to do that and to be on national television that same year and to get to tell his story and be revealing. And we take that for granted. Now we're like, oh, yeah, of course every comedian's gay, but is there a gay person who's not a comedian? So, yeah, so we're indebted to him.

[Interviewer/Host]

Frank used to do these rants, but they used to be about all kinds of topics. I have one here. It makes me laugh. It's F2. I'm gonna go to. It's from 1987. It's from LA Mama, and it's about corporations convincing us not to cook anymore. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

All right, let's listen to Frank. Maya,

[Frank Maya (voice clip)]

get those grandmas. Kill those grandmas. Kill, kill, kill those grandmas. Get those grandmas. Kill those grandmas. Kill, kill, kill those grandmas. All those grandmas out there still trying to make those chocolate chip cookies at home. Find them and kill them. That's what the interoffice memo from Duncan Hines said. And all those housewives out there still trying to make your own cake from scratch. We know you're out there. We're gonna find you. We're gonna get you. We're sick of you old fats cooking at home.

[Chase Banking Announcer]

How dare you.

[Frank Maya (voice clip)]

We're looking for young kids, young American kids who drink NutraSweet, who have no idea whatsoever what homemade tastes like.

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, my God.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm gonna clap as well.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Morgan Basakis]

That was amazing.

[Interviewer/Host]

Putting in the office. Kill those grandmas. Kill those grandmas. When you watched his performance, what did you look for in his performance that you knew that you would then use in your performance?

[Morgan Basakis]

Right. I'm so happy. You just played his voice and you just played. I mean, that was. It still thrills me to hear him. Well, I was looking for the. He has so many monologues which, as you said, he called rants. And then he has all these songs. And in 1987, the show you just played from, he was really making this transition from like kind of downtown performance art, like La Mama PS 122, the kitchen, over to a few years later to try to be a standup comic. So in those years, he's really developing his comedic style and you can kind of hear him discovering his way. So I just try to hone in on some monologues or some brands that really resonated with me. And I picked some songs of his that we really loved and with my incredible director, Sam Pinkleton. And we just kind of went wove the show together around some of his major set pieces in the show. And then my kind of Persona, constantly interrupting, getting in the way and almost, you know, battling for space.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's my next section. I have. My first section is Frank and my

[Alison Stewart]

next section says Morgan.

[Morgan Basakis]

Okay, here we go.

[Interviewer/Host]

The character Morgan, we meet on stage. Is it you? Is it a heightened version of you? Who's Morgan that we meet?

[Morgan Basakis]

I know I need to get back into therapy to figure it out. I think that it's like a Persona, you know, kind of definitely a heightened Persona. Kind of delusional, narcissistic. Narcissistic, maybe. Well intentioned, but certainly powerless over their own ambition. And, yeah, that's sort of the character that I've been working with for many years.

[Interviewer/Host]

Morgan on stage is going through a few things. We get to watch. What is he going through as a performer?

[Morgan Basakis]

Yeah, well, I think this, I think the struggle, if you can call it a struggle of sharing space, you know what I mean? Which I think for solo performers is a thing. And I think I would say for many of us, we live In a culture, a collective condition of narcissism, there is such a profound investment in the self and a refusal to kind of feel our interconnectedness and our interdependence. And there's so many social conditions that want that for us that I think it is a struggle to push past our own narcissism and to push past our own selfhood and individuality. And really, that's the struggle of the show, is for the Morgan character to move beyond the sense of being an individual and being an original and acknowledging that we're all deeply derivative and constituted by one another.

[Interviewer/Host]

He is often seen screaming to a woman named Gloria.

[Gloria Gomez]

That's right.

[Morgan Basakis]

That's right.

[Interviewer/Host]

You don't really see she's director or a stage manager. Who is Gloria and what is her role?

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, my God. Well, yeah, Morgan is constantly screaming to Gloria Gomez, who's our incredible stage manager, who we worked with at La Mama, where we first staged the show last year, which is where Frank performed this piece in 1987. And Gloria is an amazing person, and she's become kind of like the foil for the Morgan character, who is barely keeping it together. And, yeah, I think Gloria is the true star of the show.

[Interviewer/Host]

Now, can you explain to people, you said you performed this before at La Mama, and some of it is what Frank said, literally. Other parts of it are your imagination.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Can you explain how that is divided in the show?

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes, exactly. Okay, great. So, yeah, so Frank performed this piece called Frank Maya Talks at La mama on East 4th Street, a legendary venue where everybody has passed through and continues to. And I sort of. I start the show with one of his monologues from. From that show. And then it's a series of interruptions and trying to. And I keep returning to Frank's work and also kind of imagining my work in his style. So I do some things in the style of him, some sort of things that he did. And then eventually in the show, I think what's exciting is you start to get a little confused. Where's my work and where's his?

[Interviewer/Host]

What changed as you were working on this project? Because it was. It started as one thing, and it's what it is today might be different than it is next year. But I'm curious, what was the biggest change from the beginning of it?

[Morgan Basakis]

Okay. Wow. Okay. Well, I think I just have continued to discover stuff in his work. Every time I return to his stuff, I'm like, oh, my God. I'm getting his work on a deeper level. And I think Sam Pinkleton My director said this thing in the beginning that was so helpful to me. He was like, first and foremost, we have to make an entertaining night of theater. It's wonderful. This is about a person that people should know about. It's wonderful that you have messages about how the government is continuing to decide that certain populations are disposable. And first and foremost, we have to make a really entertaining night of theater. And so that has been such a useful compass to keep sharpening as we've done it over the past, over the past year, to keep honing and sort of paring down and finding what, making sure every single word and every single gesture is necessary. That's been delightful process.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, Sam Pikleton was sitting right there, right here, three weeks ago.

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh my God.

[Interviewer/Host]

Josh Sharp was sitting right there.

[Frank Maya (voice clip)]

Oh my God.

[Morgan Basakis]

My ancestors.

[Interviewer/Host]

And we asked him a little bit about working with you.

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh my God.

[Gloria Gomez]

I am working with an incredible, incredible genius comedian, activist, hero called Morgan Basakis, who is making a show called Can I Be Frank? That is a kind of conversation with dance with a comedian called Frank Maya who died of aids. He was a comedian who was kind of just on the precipice of mainstream success when he died of aids. And Morgan has made this hilarious show that is an excavation of Frank's material and it's. There's nothing like it. We're doing it at Soho Playhouse and it starts previews next week.

[Interviewer/Host]

All right. He said activist in the beginning.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you consider yourself an activist?

[Morgan Basakis]

Well, yeah, I mean, I. Yes, it's kind of inextricable. My artistic and political commitments and, you know, certainly like so many people, I wake up thinking about the horror in Gaza every single day. And. And like so many other people, feel like it is my responsibility to do every single thing I can to stop our government's complicity in the genocide that Israel is carrying out in Gaza. So. And that comes out of a long standing commitment for me, both inside of Jewish communities and inside of all of our communities to organize us against racism and against war and into solidarity movements.

[Interviewer/Host]

My guest is Morgan Basakis. He's starring in a one person show called Can I Be Frank? It's a meditation on the work of comic Frank Maja, who died in the mid-1990s. I want to talk to you a little bit about stagecraft, a little bit about how Sam was helpful to you. Okay. He said you had to put on an entertaining show. What did that mean to you when he said entertaining show?

[Morgan Basakis]

First of all, yes, it's a Great question. My biological father, Sam Pinkle, what did he mean when he said that? I think he's like, you have to earn. You gotta earn the gravity. You gotta earn the sincerity. You have to earn the message. And I really agree with him. And I think there's something about really balancing the gravity and the levity and. And making sure that the humor is carried throughout that makes the message of it so much more digestible and metabolizable. And it's Mary Poppins, you know, it's Spoonful of Sugar. Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

You are constantly wrapping yourself in a mic cord. The longest mic cord I have ever seen anyone, ever.

[Morgan Basakis]

Thank you. That's an honor to be recognized. Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

What's the deal with the mic cord?

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, my God. Thank you for asking. No one's asked yet. Well, we discovered in rehearsal, because we'd always used a cordless mic. And then we were like, oh, my God, this mic. This cord just presents all these kind of choreographic opportunities. And also, to me, it kind of also represents this kind of. This kind of umbilical cord, this kind of across generations, that is like the microphone cord for so many of us queers of, like, we are passing down the mic, and we need to get on stage, and we have this need that we don't even know totally understand where it comes from to get on stage and try to make people laugh. And that is. It just carries through so many generations.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, it's interesting because when I watched one of the past, Frank Maja, he had one of the long chords. I was like, oh, is it that? But then at the same time, when you're on stage, like, you don't really know what to do with it. It's, like, wrapped five times around your arm. You've got a woman in the audience, you ask her to hold the cord. It was one of those things that was, like, funny. And you're not sure why.

[Morgan Basakis]

Totally. I appreciate you naming it. Yeah. Choreography, excellent.

[Interviewer/Host]

The staging. The staging of the show is interesting. You used the same life preserver that Frank used in his program.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

First of all, why did you choose to use that?

[Morgan Basakis]

I knew right away when I saw the video of his work, that I wanted to recreate that very simple set that he had, which was his backdrop of this life preserver. And I asked my dear friend Eli Harrison to recreate it. And so they meticulously recreated it, which I think was just its own kind of beautiful gesture of honoring, to recreate what somebody else made. And I think the symbol, you know, means something to Him. And also it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. So it's this kind of very open ended, I think, thing that people can kind of make their own meaning off of. And he also was making. He made merch, he made buttons, he made T shirts. You know, he was. That was his logo. He was kind of like getting his logo out in the world. So we wanted to honor it that way.

[Interviewer/Host]

In the show you sing.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Got a beautiful voice, by the way. When did you decide that there would be singing in the show?

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, I always knew because he was singing in his shows and the music was so amazing. And I thought, oh, my God, I can't. And that was part of the eerie thing of discovering his work was like these jokes feel very familiar. The songs which are kind of these neurotic pop songs. He has a song called God is Busy, you know, like, he has a song called Too Nervous that also really resonates with the kind of songs I make. I have a song about seltzer, you know what I mean? That is tied to the Boycott divestment sanctions movement. And so I knew right away I had to do some of his songs.

[Interviewer/Host]

What do you hope people will talk about after they see the show? They leave, they go out, they have a drink. What do you hope they talk about?

[Morgan Basakis]

Well, I hope they'll go and do research and go and look at more videos of. Frank, you mentioned.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. You mentioned a series of people whose writings that we could read.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Would you name them really quickly so if somebody wants to go Google them?

[Morgan Basakis]

Oh, yes. At the end of the show. Yes. Oh, that's okay. So the.

[Interviewer/Host]

If you can remember.

[Morgan Basakis]

Yes. Well, some of the artists I name in the show, I name like Ron Vodder and Cookie Mueller and Chloe Zub and Reza Abda and Frederick Weston and Ray Navarro and Charles Ludlum. And then I end the show talking about an activist and a writer who's so important to me and so many people named Douglas Crimp, who was a member of ACT UP and who wrote a very important essay called Mourning and Militancy that has been a guide for so many of us. So I encourage people to read that essay.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's funny because the serious part of the show, again, it's. But it's funny. But it's serious. But it's funny. And I asked my previous guest the same thing. How did you decide on the balance?

[Morgan Basakis]

Yeah, I almost think about it like a musical instrument like that you want to keep taut, like between the, between the humor, between the gravity and the levity so that you can, like play it. You know what I mean? So at any time I'm trying to keep both of those that chord kind of taught. And I like the feeling of constantly zigzagging the audience back and forth to remind us that we don't need to take ourselves that seriously and we can really care about something.

[Interviewer/Host]

With only a few more minutes, I'm curious. Why do you think it's essential to keep the conversation about the AIDS crisis going 50 years after it? Yes, why is that important?

[Morgan Basakis]

This is such an important question. Because the AIDS crisis, as my friend and hero Greg Bordewitz says, is still beginning. The AIDS crisis is not over. In fact, right now we are seeing billions of dollars in cuts to HIV research, to vaccine research both in the US and around the world, while the US Is sending billions to armed genocide. And so this crisis is not over. The attack on public health in this country is terrifying. The attack on LGBT people, on queer and trans people, the scrubbing of HIV and AIDS from federal websites and data. This crisis is just beginning. And our responsibility is to make sure to honor those we have lost and to continue their fight and to continue the struggle for a future where everybody has quality health care and a society that values life over profit.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with performer Morgan Basakis. His one person show, Can I Be Frank is getting its second run at the SoHo Playhouse from now until June 27th. Coming up, a documentary that made waves on the film festival circuit is having a theatrical release this Friday. Director Ivy Maripole joins us to discuss how Ask E Jean, which follows the legal battles of journalist and Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll.

[Interviewer/Host]

Stay with us.

[Progressive Insurance/Odoo Announcer]

WNYC Studios is supported by AT&T Summer. It's when we share more time, more memories and more photos and at AT And T, the iPhone 17 Pro is your summer essential. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. Right now at AT&T, ask how you can get iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible iPhone. Trade in any condition requires trade in of iPhone 15 or higher excluding iPhone 16e and 17e requires eligible plan Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit att.comiphone or visit an ATT store for details.

[Chase Banking Announcer]

That feeling when you check your bank account and your paycheck's days away. And of course, your calendar's all good news with Chase Secure banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster. So when your friends are like and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part? There's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24 year olds, thanks to Chase Secure Banking.

[Morgan Basakis]

For Chase Secure Checking, only eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early, depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC.