The line just kept growing: Out of the majestic front doors. Down the sidewalk. Past the university’s symbolic gates. Toward Diamond Street.
These landmarks may strike the faraway reader’s eye as dispatches from another planet. But they were perfectly familiar to the man of the hour.
Emmy and Tony-winning, twice Oscar-nominated actor Colman Domingo addressed a crowd of students, alumni and faculty Thursday at the Temple Performing Arts Center. Onstage at the site of the historic Baptist Temple, Domingo recounted his rise from do-it-all stage play virtuoso to, as Out magazine hailed him last fall, “the first Black gay movie star.”
Questions in the moderated discussion came from Nu’Rodney T. Prad, director of Temple’s Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership center, as well as sophomore film major Reyna Jones. Audience members submitted items of their own, too.
Domingo’s rise began in a class at Temple, he said. An instructor named Chris pulled him aside in his senior year. Had he ever thought about acting, Chris asked? He certainly seemed to have the chops for it.
“It knocked me out,” Domingo said. “No one had ever told me I had a gift.”
Still a journalism undergrad, unsure how far to take his new passion, Domingo began taking acting classes in relative secrecy at the Walnut Street Theater — and embarking on the journey that would one day bring him back to campus.
Not everyone in the audience knew the man or his work.
Aidan S. MacIlvaine found out about Domingo’s appearance just hours earlier, in an email from TFMA marketing chief Jason Lindner.
“I never watched any of his work before,” MacIlvaine said. “My friends texted — and they were like, ‘Oh my god, did you see that he’s coming?’”
But the King of Bingo’s reign spans more than five dozen films, stage plays and television shows, from his brief performance as a Union private in Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” to an eight-season run as Victor Strang in “Fear the Walking Dead.” As a reel of Domingo’s career highlights played on a screen at stage’s edge, the audience recognized him in waves as “that guy from that thing.” Each successive role sparked a chorus of claps, hoots and cheers.
Then, Ali — Rue’s Al-Anon sponsor in the HBO show “Euphoria,” for whom Domingo won an Emmy in 2022 — appeared onscreen. The applause became a seat-shaking roar.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts nominated him for Best Actor in 2023, thanks to his turn as the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. Domingo learned about Rustin at Temple’s Black Student Union; he hadn’t heard of the March on Washington’s organizer anywhere else. Rustin’s very existence felt like a secret, Domingo told the audience.
History had deliberately pushed the West Chester native to its back pages. Civil rights leaders, fearing Rustin’s sexuality would alienate the public, kept him at arm’s length: Keynote speaker Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., crossed the National Mall to shake hands with then-President John F. Kennedy at the White House after the march; Rustin stayed back and helped pick up trash.
Rustin had lost three teeth at the hands of law enforcement. Domingo, anxious to honor a like-minded local’s legacy, wore a prosthetic in his mouth to match, he told Terry Gross in an early 2024 appearance on “Fresh Air.”
Last year, Domingo again won awards voters’ collective hearts as John “Divine G” Whitfield in “Sing Sing,” a film about the notorious New York prison’s theater program and the power of the arts to unveil the humanity of their participants. Again, the Oscars came calling with another nomination. But to Domingo, the film fulfilled far higher callings than those onstage at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater.
“You’re drawn to this medium because you understand what it can do for a person,” he told the crowd.
Organizers officially closed Domingo’s appearance to the public. Tables at the base of the Baptist Temple’s ornate stairs upheld readers where students swiped their OwlCards to access the event. Within those doors, among an audience largely made up of theater students, identity asserted itself in ways quickly becoming rare beyond them.
A student opened the night with a land acknowledgement honoring the Lenni Lenape tribe, as has long been TFMA’s practice at gatherings and performances. And Domingo, who will chair the committee that sets fashion at this year’s Met Gala, explained his decision to wear a cape at last year’s event as follows: “Black men wear capes.”
So did Latino men, he added, and Asian men, white men, women and trans people — the crowd erupting in ever-louder cheers at each shout-out.
That focus on representation, Domingo noted, arose from his own experiences in theater. He’s from West Philadelphia, 52nd Street — beyond the glass-paneled research centers and eternal construction sites of University City. Onstage, he couldn’t find full, accurate, human portrayals of the men who’d formed the inner rings of his galaxy growing up. So he became a playwright, then a director, then a producer.
But his depictions weren’t just designed to set people apart.
“We are all one; we are all human,” Domingo said, later adding, “My job, as an artist, is to show the ways in which we are all alike.”
Domingo intended to spend the night offering inspiration and wisdom. And his fans in the audience intended to listen. Kiana Lattimore, a recent media studies and production alumnus, returned to campus prepared to literally take notes.
“He always has very, very wise words and very real things to say about his career,” said Lattimore, who came with a friend. “And so, being two people who are trying to get established in our careers, it was just something that I felt like I needed to do.”
But Domingo ended the night much as he had begun. At the start, he led a raucous chant of Temple’s simple anthem — “Fight! Fight! Fight! For the Cherry and the White!”
At the end, someone asked Domingo whether he’d ever make a musical album to try and win the coveted EGOT. Quoting Denzel Washington, Domingo said he cared about the rewards. Not the a-wards.
He did care about the selfie: The lanky, lengthy Domingo turned and raised the camera as high and far as possible. Students squealed with delight and scrambled out of their seats. Dozens, if not hundreds, scrambled from their seats to fill the frame.
“I’ll post this,” Temple’s returning champion shouted amid the din of delight. “And you’ll tag yourselves.”
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