The ongoing global pandemic will require the show to rework its format.
Mikelle StreetPose has become a high point of Pride season, truly. Generally, the season kicks off around the first week of June and brings the fictitious houses of a Steven Canals X Ryan Murphy X Janet Mock imagined ballroom scene back into our lives. But this year, as a result of the ongoing viral pandemic, that isn't happening. The show shuttered early during production of the episodes.
“When production paused, I wasn’t shocked — I knew it would happen — but it was a bittersweet moment for me,” show lead Indya Moore told Variety in a new feature. “On the one hand, if anyone had gotten sick, it surely would have spread fast. On the other hand, most folks working on a production are living paycheck to paycheck. So I was worried about how they are going to survive.” Moore, who has actively been involved in the recent protests both in-person and online, went on to bring attention to the fact that some of these working on production are having a "really rough time."
And while things are halted now, they will eventually come back. But how? Well first up, the entire season hasn't even been written yet because things got shut down so early. That said, it will be written and filmed but with some significant tweaks.
"'Things like kissing — we will likely forgo those moments,"show creator Canals said. "The place on our show where the biggest impact will be felt will be the ball scenes: Those scenes have 125 to 150 background actors. That’s tricky, because that’s such an important and critical part of our show and the narrative. We’re just, only now, having conversations of ‘Is there a world where we forgo these things?’” Hopefully not.
While the visual of the ballroom scenes add a lot to the series, those parts also keep the show grounded within the community it is inspired by. Many of those in the background, as well as in the featured cameos from those segments, are from the ballroom community itself. If this is lost, we are hopeful that the show will find another way to integrate this aspect.
As an aside though, if kissing is out, does that mean radical love scenes like the one between Pray Tell and Ricky Evangelista are out too?! Say it ain't so! You can watch that scenes, and everything else from season 2, on Netflix next week!
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