The Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department congratulates Emmy Award-winning writer/director/producer Joey Soloway, a former student in Columbia College’s Film and Video program, on their induction into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, the only city-sanctioned LGBT Hall of Fame in the world. Soloway, a Chicago native, launched their career in Chicago as co-creator of the Annoyance Theatre comedy troupe’s 1990s underground hit The Real Live Brady Bunch, in which episodes of the 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch were re-enacted onstage in a tongue-in-cheek deadpan style by a cast that included up-and-coming Jane Lynch HDR ’16, later recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Columbia College Chicago. Soloway is best known as the creator of the groundbreaking Amazon original series Transparent, which revolved around a Los Angeles family and their lives following the discovery that their parent is trans. Over the course of its five-season (2014-2019) run, Transparent received 24 Emmy nominations and eight Emmy awards — including two for Solowayʼs directing – as well as two Golden Globes. Soloway and their sibling, musician Faith Soloway, are currently developing Transparent for production as a stage musical.

As previously reported in this blog, during the spring 2022 semester at Columbia College, Soloway participated in a Zoom webinar, hosted by the Columbia College Chicago Career Center and the college’s Student Diversity and Inclusion office, called Flipping the Script with Joey Soloway, in which Soloway was interviewed by Columbia College alum and LGBTQ history journalist Devlyn Camp ’14, who graduated with a BA in Television Writing and Producing from what is now the Columbia College Chicago Cinema and Television Arts Department and a Minor in Acting from the Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department. The video of the interview is posted above.