A Queer Victorian Comedy, a Mummy, and a Newborn “Scream Coach”: Inside USF’s Gin Mummy

by Avery Anderson

On paper, Gin Mummy sounds like a punchline — a drawing-room comedy with “all the wit of Oscar Wilde,” as Dr. Jennifer Kokai puts it, except this time the queer characters are allowed to step out of the shadows and actually exist. And also: yes, there is a mummy.

But underneath the silliness and farce, director Landon Green is steering the USF Theatre production toward something deeper — a sparkly mirrorball reflecting identity, bravery, and what it means to finally see yourself in a story that historically pretended you weren’t there.

Green isn’t just directing the show. He’s living inside it.

As a “mixed-race Filipino member of the queer community,” Green wrote in his program note that taking on playwright Melissa Leilani Larson’s work was “an honor.” The play’s themes of self-reflection, societal pressure, and the lifelong project of self-discovery spoke directly to his own “journeys of biracial incongruity, sexual epiphany (ace in a hetero-presenting relationship), and professional fulfillment.”

And his approach to comedy — big, messy, Victorian chaos — starts with that honesty.

“As actors (and as Teaching Directors) we get to explore in rehearsal, improv moments,” he said. These characters are speaking these words “for the first time,” much like real people stumbling through their own firsts. For Green, rehearsal mirrors the larger human project: “This life… is a rehearsal with no end; an ongoing improvisation.”

So what does that mean for a cast tasked with slamming doors, declaring forbidden love, and arguing about mummies?

“For my actors, it's a matter of being brave, the kind of brave many of us wish we could be in everyday life,” he said. If you reframe the search for identity as an adventure rather than a burden, he added, “that struggle instead becomes an adventure of discovery.”

(And then, in true Landon fashion: “others may call it coping, but ‘yolo’ haha.”)

Why a queer Victorian farce matters — especially right now

Larson’s script plays in a time period that adored decorum and denied humanity — a delicious setup for a 2025 staging that’s big on color, queerness, and refusing to shrink.

“The world is not always a hospitable place for those who are ‘othered.’” Green said. “The world becomes less vibrant when people… discover that they may be ‘other’ and hide, regress, or compensate for their fear.”

As director, his mission is simple: let people see themselves.

“All audiences should have shows available to them where they can be welcome to feel seen and represented. Actors should feel empowered to represent characters that reflect their own lived experiences rather than watching others play pretend.”

Staging Gin Mummy becomes both resistance and joy — a bright, queer reclaiming of a genre that historically airtight-sealed its closets.

“Using a fictionalized past as a lens,” he said, allows the team to look forward into “a frontier of personal and professional discovery.”

About that mummy…

The company dove deep into Victorian England and Egyptology — and promptly discovered that history is always weirder than fiction.

“Aristocrats had ‘unwrapping’ parties with mummies they absconded with… and during which parties they would literally eat parts of the mummies as a holistic remedy or for a mystic boon,” Green said.

Yes. They ate them.

“Square that with whatever metaphor you can align with the current social climate,” he added.

Suddenly a comedy with a mummy feels less ridiculous and more like… commentary.

A truly family affair — complete with newborn dramaturg

One of the purest throughlines of this production is that Green didn’t make it alone.

His wife, Katherine Yacko, serves as Assistant Director and Dialect Coach — “indispensable,” he said, as both an artistic partner and longtime collaborator.

And then there’s Briscoe, their newborn son, who made his theatrical debut as “Shadow Director and Scream Coach.”

“He has let his laurels get to his head as he spends most of rehearsal eating or sleeping,” Green joked. But Briscoe quickly became the room’s emotional barometer: “His presence has helped all of us lock in… because who wants to wake up such a precious thing or waste his time with unmotivated work?”

On nights without a babysitter, the cast and crew simply folded him in — another reminder of the play’s true heart: chosen family, inherited family, and the futures we build from both.

If you go

Gin Mummy
By Melissa Leilani Larson
Directed by Landon Green
A USF Theatre Production

📍 USF Theatre 2, Tampa Campus
🗓️ Thursday, Nov. 20 – Saturday, Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m.
🗓️ Sunday, Nov. 23 at 2 p.m.