Meet Apollo Houston

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Apollo Houston a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Apollo, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

When I feel my creativity burning out, I sit in Central Park. Recently I was struggling to find a new story for a new play I was writing so I left my apartment and sat in Central Park for a few hours. I love to study the people and their energy, picturing where they came from and what they’re doing next. There’s something incredibly interesting about the different types of stories that are told simply through what a person wears or how a person walks. A lot of the characters I create are based off of people I have passed by on the street or have seen in Central Park. It keeps the creativity alive because I never see the same person twice, it is always something new.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’ve been in the theater world since I was about eight years old. I started as a performer in school musicals, which I still love doing to this day, but as I got older my career goals shifted. I’ve been writing since I was nine years old. It started as small children’s book then progressed into novels and novellas. When I was a kid, I realized that I was different from the other children. There was something I felt deep in my soul that I knew I couldn’t change. So, instead of trying to change it, I put it into words. Since the age of nine, everything I have written involved a queer storyline. Every single thing. I have written romance, tragedy, comedy, drama, and every single story has a queer main character.

When I was in high school, I came out as non-binary. I began writing transgender storylines, which is now my primary focus. I moved from writing novels to writing plays and screenplays. In my senior year of high school, I co-wrote and performed in a play titled “The Littlest Things Feel Like They’re Going to Kill Us” for the METG Festival. That show is what confirmed for me that I want to be a writer and director professionally.

I would say the most special part of my work is that I aspire to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to be the person that I needed when I was young, the person that celebrates queer art and life. I want my work to inform the ignorant and comfort the people who need it most. My work is full of love for the people that the media has neglected for generations.

Currently, I am directing a play that I wrote entitled “Rowan” with my amazing assistant director, Elijah Laurence. This show is about a man, Jathian, struggling with the loss of his high school best friend and first love, Rowan, ten years after he passed away. Jathian searches the spirits of his past to find answers, but his younger self only pushes what he believes to be true.

“Rowan” is a project I have been working on since I was fifteen years old and I am overjoyed to finally be putting it on stage this summer. The show will be performed at The Frigid NYC. For updates on performance dates and for behind the scenes coverage of the project you can find us on instagram and TikTok @rowan.official.play

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Personally, I think I am very good at reading people/studying the mannerisms of people. For writers, at least, it is definitely a struggle to make each character unique, so I always suggest learning the mannerisms of strangers and friends. I also possess the ability to be vulnerable in my work. The ability to be vulnerable really pushes your work from two dimensional to three dimensional. I also spent my entire life studying varying forms of media, which I believe is a very important area of knowledge to have as a writer/director.

My advice for people early in their journey is to acknowledge that it isn’t easy. Once you acknowledge that success doesn’t happen overnight, you are able to develop your work in a more personal and vulnerable way. You will start to take your time, you will study and learn from the media and people around you. The first step to improving is acknowledging that you are just starting.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The book that has played the most important role in my development is “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. I have read this book, and watched this movie, over twenty times. Most of my writing stems in queer tragedy, which is found in the character Patrick from Perks. There is something so real about who he is and how he is perceived by the narrator of the story. Within the realm of queer tragedy, my favorite story to tell is queer romance. In the world we live in, people in the lgbtqia+ community often allow themselves to fall into these tragic love stories that break who they are. In “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” the character Mr. Anderson says to the narrator “We accept the love we think we deserve.” While this seems like a one off sentence, that sentence explains the lives of many queer people and is the most important nugget of wisdom I could have ever gotten from a book.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @a.houston__ or @rowan.official.play
• Youtube: apollohoustonofficial1717
• Other: TikTok – @rowan.official.play

Image Credits

Headshots taken by Shani Hadjian