Where this was said
San Francisco, Coming Out, and Writing the First Play
At 34:49 · chapter starts 32:20
A few college friends lured Domingo to San Francisco, and he admits with a laugh that he was 'coming out' in multiple senses of the phrase — arriving in the city and emerging as a gay man simultaneously. The living situation was characteristically scrappy: four men in a $625/month studio apartment in the Tenderloin District, Domingo sleeping in the walk-in closet because he was the last to arrive. He was 6'2" in a closet. He began writing plays while bartending, and his first work, Up Jump Springtime — named after a Stan Getz and Abbey Lincoln song — explored queer coming-of-age in an era when no one was writing those stories, with three actors playing every role. He notes that around this time he also wrote the book for the Donna Summer musical, lamenting that Summer's legacy is underappreciated given the extraordinary range of her voice.
Colman Domingo wrote his first play, 'Up Jump Springtime,' in 1997 in San Francisco — a coming-of-age story about a young queer man, with three actors playing all roles.
Colman Domingo met his husband Raul in 2005 after they both posted on Craigslist missed connections following a chance encounter outside a Berkeley, CA Walgreens.
Colman Domingo crossed paths with his future husband Raul outside a Berkeley Walgreens in 2005 and couldn't stop thinking about him. Three days later, scrolling Craigslist missed connections to post his own ad, he found that Raul had already posted one — just an hour earlier. On their first date, Domingo told him, 'I think I love you.'
