Tufts alumni close out three seasons of ‘My Gay Roommate,’ strive for mainstream TV

Chances are, you’ve heard of TUTV. Yep, Tufts University Television -- a student group producing music videos, documentary and news content, fiction series and a retelling of the William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” through the modern day series “Jules and Monty.”But before Jules and Monty ever met, TUTV helped kick off another popular mini-series that’s now aiming to become a primetime TV regular: “My Gay Roommate” (MGR). MGR is a highly successful Youtube series that premiered its season three finale on Tuesday.

Created by Noam Ash (A’ 13) and Austin Bening (A’13), “My Gay Roommate” began with the simple story of a straight boy from Ohio, James (Phillip Lockwood Bean), beginning his first year of college. On his first day, he walks in to meet his brand-new roommate Nick (Noam Ash) who just happens to be … very, very gay. And dancing in his underwear at that.While the show’s storyline has varied throughout its three seasons, creators Ash and Bening are now hoping to return the show to its original college setting, and are pitching their story to mainstream TV producers to turn the mini-series into a full-length television show.

The first season follows the two first-years as they establish a strong friendship, amongst altercations and some slight awkwardness, while they navigate the usual strange and uncomfortable first year experiences to which everyone can relate. The storyline is based heavily on creators Ash and Bening’s actual first year friendship, as they figured out the ins and outs of being first time college students. And believe it or not, after six years, the two remain roommates today.

“[The first season is] basically the highlights of our freshman year,” Bening said. “It’s a little retelling of the whole thing.”

“Austin and I had been roommates since freshman year at Tufts,” Ash said, describing the origin of the idea for the series. “I was a drama major and Austin was head of TUTV … He totally convinced me and we wrote the pilot and pitched it to the board of TUTV. It was unanimously selected -- also, it was the only show proposed -- but with that drawn endorsement, we moved forward.”

After Bening and Ash filmed the pilot on the second floor of Carpenter House with the help of TUTV, the first episode was quickly picked up by Queerty Magazine -- and the project snowballed from there, according to Ash. While the show’s popularity grew quickly after Bening and Ash graduated from Tufts -- the MGR channel on YouTube has over 44,000 subscribers -- they credit their senior year and the help of TUTV as setting the foundation for the series.

“Every single episode of the third season was featured on Huffington Post,” Ash said. “And we got mentioned in the New York Times. That stuff was really huge for us and that happened after we left Tufts -- but the whole foundation is the first season of the show which we shot completely at Tufts during our senior year.”

“We were very lucky that we had all of the TUTV equipment,” Bening continued. “We did [the first season] on like a zero dollar budget.”

While the first season included moments like Nick giving James dating advice for Valentine’s Day, and the two struggling to decide whether or not to live together once again, the second season follows Nick as he returns home to New York for the summer, which Bening and Ash filmed almost immediately after graduating Tufts in 2013.

“We basically moved into Noam’s family attic and shot the next season,” Bening said. “That’s how we kind of stayed sane, when were both kind of unemployed.”

The material of the second season gets a little grittier, opening with “The Art of Manscaping,” as Nick shaves, well … pretty much in every place you can imagine.

“We had Noam doing various yoga poses,” Bening joked, describing the filming of the episode. And in season three, Nick takes time off of school to pursue a life on his own in New York City -- allowing each season to function as “its own little album,” according to Bening.

According to Ash, however, the finale of season three will be the mini-series’ turning point.

“What is most likely going to happen is that season three … will be the last full season on YouTube,” Ash announced. “We’ve recently started working with incredible TV agents in Los Angeles and are working on getting the show picked up to a full 30 minute format for mainstream television.”

But never fear -- Ash plans to continue playing everyone’s favorite Nick, while both Bening and Ash hope to work as creative directors on the set. And while the two hope the show will maintain a similar structure to YouTube series, both are looking forward to the expected expansion.

“It's going to be a brand new collaboration, and the people we end up working with are going to end up influencing how [MGR] looks and feels,” Ash said.

And while creating one’s own YouTube series is no simple process, somehow these two friends have managed to do more than just stay afloat while creating three full seasons of "My Gay Roommate." What's kept them going all this time?

“Love, anger and the YouTube,” Bening joked.

“Making your own show is really, really gratifying and satisfying, and it’s also really, really hard,” Ash said. “It is so difficult to get everything moving and shaking. But, ultimately it’s the love of the story. We feel passionately about telling this story and putting our voice out there, and the response has been incredible. People stop us throughout the city recognizing the show, or we’ll get letters. I got a Facebook message from a kid in China that the show had helped him come out to his friends and family, and they all watched it together … It’s those kinds of things that make everything completely worth it.”

And MGR does, in fact, tell a genuinely unique story -- one that is not often told on mainstream television -- of the true intersection between the gay and the straight worlds in the sincere manner of friendship.

“Usually shows have either a gay or a straight vibe,” Bening said. “And usually it focuses on one, but this [show] is about a partnership of both, so that’s what I think sets it apart … You just have these two people interacting with one another -- one gay, one straight -- and those micro-relations [occur] when you live with someone.”

While MGR’s humor may be a bit more suggestive than your average episode of “Will and Grace” (1998 - 2006),Ash echoed Bening’s sentiments regarding the sincerity of the show.

“While the humor is very suggestive and risque at times, the content at the end of the day is really about friendship,” Ash said, describing the show’s humor as “unapologetic.”

“It’s unapologetic because it’s so personal,” Bening elaborated. “With a lot of LGBT series, you find that you want to be this [type], or you want to be this [genre], but -- we’re not trying to be anything but ourselves.”

The show’s sincerity and spirit has been supported by a wide array of friends and cast members, both on and off Tufts’ campus, which culminated in the season three finale “Partners in Crime.”

“There was very much again a huge sense of community, because it took over 30 people to work on this season finale,” Ash said. “We shot the last part of it in Central Park with 20 of our friends who came to support [us] … It was just such a beautiful, collaborative way to end the season, and I’m really excited to have people see it.”

With the future of MGR looking promising, Ash and Bening have high hopes for themselves in the professional world and at home. The pair plan to live happily ever after together as roommates.

“I have a plan,” Ash said. “Once the show picks up ... and we’re very wealthy, I have designed a lovely mansion … It’s going to have two big wings, each one will have their own separate house, if you will, and there will be a glass bridge with a pool underneath connecting the two.”