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'Kinky Boots' Star Billy Porter Writes Play Based On Own Life

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- He could be the busiest man on Broadway, changing in and out of wigs and gowns eight shows a week in "Kinky Boots" and writing an off-Broadway play that opened last month.

The new play by Tony Award-winning actor Billy Porter, "While I Yet Live," is mostly based on his own family and upbringing in Pittsburgh.

Porter calls his play a love letter to the women who raised him in a very religious household at a time when it was not easy to come out as a gay man.

"I grew up in a very strict Pentecostal household," Porter told CBS 2's Dana Tyler in an in-studio interview. "And I knew pretty early on that I was gay. It was difficult. It was difficult to sort of help my family understand how to evolve around that issue and that subject."

Porter says his play is a story of forgiveness and patience.

"Change takes time," Porter said. "And that was what I wanted to talk about in the piece. ... We can evolve and we can change, but everybody has to be patient about how long that takes."

For the full interview with Porter and one of his co-stars, Sharon Washington, watch the video above.

"While I Yet Live" is running at The Duke on 42nd Street. For more information, click here.

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