When Bears Attack

Langway directs extras.

“BearCity is the story of my life, my experiences, and my friends, who all identify as a bear,” he says. “I’m very confident that we have told a story that will make the bear community proud because we made it all-inclusive, which is what the community was created for. The beauty of the bear community is its diversity, so it would have been unrealistic not to have the full spectrum of people represented. I don’t consider Tyler a ‘twink’ as much as a young man looking for love, and it was important to me to tell the story of a man coming to terms with his alternate view of beauty and sexual attraction.”

In addition to cameos by such local lavender luminaries as Village People cowboy Randy Jones and Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, many of the major gay roles, shaggy and shaven, are played by openly gay men, including The Big Gay Sketch Show’s Stephen Guarino and CSI’s Gerald McCullouch.

“It’s a good thing, but it just kind of worked out that way,” Ferber insists. “We held normal auditions as anyone else would, and our casting director didn’t consider anyone’s sexuality either.”

But can we safely assume that the majority of actors in BearCity are gay?