Actor Owen Thiele is having a moment. The 28-year-old has most recently played Anton in the hit comedy “Overcompensating” and George in the equally well-received “Adults.” He has his own podcast on Alex Cooper’s Unwell network. And before all of that, he played Gigi Chabonier in “Theater Camp” alongside real-life friends Molly Gordon, Ben Platt and Noah Galvin. (Yes, that was Owen delivering the iconic line, “Sad news, I will not be doing piercings anymore in the hut. Because there’s a narc amongst us. Um, Cassie has narced.”)
Now, he’s set to lead his own comedy at Amazon, a semi-autobiographical show called “Off Color” — and it sounds amazing.
The logline for the show reads: “He’s gay and Black, they’re all Jewish, his mom should be on ‘Real Housewives’ and his cousin’s a former party girl turned rabbi-in-training. The comedy is about a son who doesn’t want to grow up, a mother who has no intention of letting him, and a dad who’s probably faking a nap in the other room so he doesn’t have to engage.”
Hell. Yeah.
The news that the show was coming broke last year, but Owen recently revealed that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Susie Essman has been cast as his mom. He also divulged that “Broad City” broad Ilana Glazer, who was already on board as an executive producer, has been cast to play the party girl turned rabbi-in-training cousin. This marks a reunion for the pair, who played mother and daughter in “Broad City.” “The saying is, ‘Don’t meet your heroes. Except for Ilana Glazer,'” Owen recently told Vanity Fair.
The show is based on Owen’s own life as the Black adoptee to white parents, mom Amy Kanter and Jewish music royalty Bob Thiele Jr. (Thiele Jr. has worked with artists Bette Midler and Ray Charles, and his father, Owen’s grandfather, co-wrote “What a Wonderful World” for Louis Armstrong.) “I was adopted into a white Jewish family, and then I went to a school called Center for Early Education, and then Crossroads. Very white spaces,” he said in the same Vanity Fair interview. He also said it was only later that he realized his life was atypical. “I never felt different in my family, which is a beautiful thing.”
While it’s currently unclear whether Owen identifies as culturally or religiously Jewish, both or neither, “Off Color” sounds like a beautifully authentic queer, Black and Jewish story with plenty of potential for hilarity. I, personally, cannot wait to watch.
