Meet the Characters of Speakeasy: A New Broadway Musical 🎭✨
- Waymon Hudson
- Aug 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 13
A queer, jazz-soaked Romeo & Juliet for Broadway — and my life story in disguise.
Why These Characters Matter
When I set out to write Speakeasy: A New Broadway Musical, I wasn’t just writing a love story set in a 1920s speakeasy. I was writing myself. Every character carries a shard of my history — my queerness, my survival, my defiance, my humor, and my joy.
Like the underground clubs of the Pansy Craze in the 1920s and ’30s, Speakeasy is a place where forbidden lives found light. And just like those real-life sanctuaries, the Velvet Boot (our central club) is where these characters — and my story — come to life.
✨ Jules Delaney: The Voice That Refuses to Stay Silent
Raised in a strict religious home by a police officer father and a crusading mother, Jules embodies the side of me that grew up in suffocating silence. But Jules doesn’t stay quiet. She’s fierce, questioning, and aching to break free.
Her arc mirrors the fight so many queer kids know: the battle between obedience and authenticity. Jules is my reminder that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is speak up, even when the world tells you to hush.
💔 Rome Moretti: A Poet in a Violent World
Rome is born into a bootlegging empire — liquor, fists, and legacy. But beneath his tough exterior beats the heart of a romantic. He’s the part of me that yearned for tenderness in a world that demanded hardness.
Rome’s story is about rejecting legacy in favor of love, poetry over violence. He’s my softness, my yearning, my proof that vulnerability is its own revolution.
🔥 Merc DeLuca: Comic Relief with a Wound
Rome’s best friend and confidante, Merc is sharp-tongued, flamboyant, and endlessly funny. He’s the part of me that survived by cracking jokes — even when I was falling apart.
Merc’s humor masks a deep well of unspoken longing and resilience. He embodies queer fire: the kind that laughs in the face of danger and loves louder than the world allows. If Jules is my voice and Rome is my heart, Merc is my survival instinct — fierce, funny, and unafraid.
🎶 Miss Addie: The Quiet That Became a Roar
Miss Addie has helped rasied Jules with a watchful eye and a heavy heart, but helped plant the secret seed of rebellion her . A Black queer woman who’s learned survival by keeping her head down, she represents the part of me that stayed silent for too long.
But Addie has a breaking point. Her arc is about reclaiming her voice and using it to lift others. She’s my late-in-life roar — proof that while silence can protect you, your voice can save you.
🪩 The Velvet Boot & Its Patrons: Found Family in the Shadows
The Velvet Boot isn’t just a nightclub — it’s a character. Inspired by the real underground clubs of the 1920's Pansy Craze, it’s a world where drag queens, flappers, butch bartenders, jazz musicians, and queer dreamers gather.
Its patrons are more than background; they’re the heartbeat of the show. Diverse, defiant, messy, and gorgeous, they echo the chosen families I’ve built in my own life. Their songs and stories remind us that joy itself is resistance.
The Bigger Picture of Speakeasy: A New Broadway Musical – My Story in Their Voices
Put together, these characters form a tapestry of my life:
Jules is my defiance.
Rome is my tenderness.
Merc is my survival.
Addie is my voice reclaimed.
And the Velvet Boot is the queer sanctuary I always needed.
Yes, Speakeasy is a new Broadway-bound jazz musical. But it’s also my memoir set to music. Every character is a piece of me. Every note is a survival song. And every time the curtain rises, I hope someone in the audience feels seen — like they’ve just walked into their own Velvet Boot.
Read more Behind Broadway Breakdowns:
And read the arc on Broadway's Soft Boys, Masculinity, and Rome's arc in Speakeasy:
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