Shooting Star - A Revealing New Musical by Florian Klein
The world of adult entertainment has always been and will always be some integral part of most people’s lives. According to Pornhub’s 2017 Year in Review insights, the world helped Pornhub average 81 million visitors per day (28.5 billion visitors for the year), with 24.7 billion searches performed (or 50,000 searches per minute, 800 per second). About 595,492 hours was uploaded and viewed, and yet the stigma tied to the performers working in the porn industry are usually negative. Shooting Star– A Revealing New Musical, debuting May 25 at the Hudson MainStage Theater attempts to smash those stereotypes with a love story centered in the world of gay porn.
The script, or the book (as it is referred to in theater), written by Florian Klein, follows the protagonist, Taylor, a young, struggling Hollywood actor. We follow Taylor as he finds himself rocketed to stardom as the porn performer, Taylor “TNT” Trent. The audience is introduced to Taylor’s found family of amazing people who help make fantasies come alive. Attendees not only follow the lead’s journey as he achieves fame but also as the character finds what matters most in life. However, the story reveals itself to be even more authentic as it loosely based on Florian Klein's own experiences as Hans Berlin in the gay adult film world.
Florian Klein
“I was working in the entertainment industry in Germany and all over Europe, and then I decided to do an acting school in New York,” Klein explained. “I’ve always wanted to do an acting school in New York. I then fell in love with the city, and it was like the movie Fame, and I decided to do a four-year program.”
It was in 2006 when Klein came to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. He ended up doing work in television and even landed a role on Joan Rivers’ reality TV show, Joan Knows Best, as a butler.
“I did some minorly successful work, but at some point, you realize that maybe only one percent of us that is ever going to make it, and by that, I mean being an artist and getting paid for it and not having to have another side job like bartending,” Klein continued. “I started Go-Go dancing. I think only one percent can live off of acting. Maybe even a smaller percent that’s going to be a Hollywood star. So, at that point, that realization came.
Through go-go dancing in West Hollywood I was recruited to do porn,” Klein continued. “At that point, I said no. I’m a real actor. I can’t do this. I don’t know how it is with women, but I think with men straight or gay, to be sex god and to be paid for sex and have a star life and have sex with hot people, I think a lot of men that are exhibitionists is probably a dream job. To actually go through with it, it took several weeks and months to finally say I don’t have an acting career that I can destroy and why not. I love having sex, and I never did any drugs, but sometimes maybe sex was a bit of a drug for me that basically turned my addiction into a job.”
After months of thinking, he asked himself, what did he have to lose, and decided to pursue a career in the adult entertainment industry. In 2012 he shot his first scene in LA with Titan.
“At first you think, oh my gosh I’m doing porn,” Klein explained. “Like what if my parents could see me now and what are your friends going to say about it?”
The message in the musical challenges those common thoughts many people have about the adult entertainment industry. What takes place in the play is based on Klein’s own experiences in the industry, although he did not meet his partner in the gay porn world, and he made the protagonist younger to also make it a coming of age story. The play also shines a light on the stigma that people have to deal with when they work in the sex industry.
“[The musical] is about finding love, but he also has to find what really makes him happy,” Klein explained. “He comes to Hollywood to become a star and for fame, but is fame really everything if you can’t share it with someone? It doesn’t have to be one person, it could also be your family, and in that case your chosen family. Even in the ‘dirty world’ of porn, you can find your family.
Sometimes in porn, you have live sex shows on stage, and you realize how hypocritical our society is,” said Klein. “Madonna who performs on stage and does entertainment and when you do porn it is also entertainment, but there is all of this stigma that comes with it. When we ask ourselves as a society why does someone who does a porn show or porn movie different than a Hollywood actor or someone who does a performance on stage like Madonna? That’s what was going through my head, and that’s also the message of the show. I came to Hollywood to become an entertainer and be paid for it and have fans and travel around the world to meet my fans, and it came true. It’s just that the entertainment is different.”
Although some organizations from the porn industry have helped back the project in support of the message and mission, it was Klein who produced the play himself.
“I decided after not finding a producer, because they were still a little bit scared of the porn subject matter, that I would self-produce it,” said Klein. “I helped raise the money, and I stepped in as a producer for the show. So, the Shooting Star, LLC became the leading producer of Shooting Star.”
Klein’s advice for young people who want to get into the adult entertainment industry is that you should make sure that they think about why they want to pursue this profession and what they incorporate in their lives down the line. He mentions that not everyone, including himself, gets lost into drugs and partying and that it doesn’t happen any more than it does with other professions. Klein also indicates that future choices might be compromised by doing porn, but that there also a lot of young people who don’t want to wait tables, do it to pay for college, and lead perfectly normal lives when they leave the work.
“When people do it for the money I would always say see if you could work at a Starbucks or at a McDonalds if you really just want to do it for the money,” said Klein. “One of the things is that porn is forever, especially now with Google and the Internet in general. It’s never going to go away. That is also featured in the show that some people have problems with it because they have second thoughts and might have problems later in their life, but the majority of people just disappear in the crowd.
The majority of the people that I met started doing porn because they wanted to do porn,” Klein explained. “A lot of people say that we don’t have a choice, and we do have a choice. I had a choice, and I decided to do it. That is also true for many people in front of and also behind the camera.”
Florian Klein also gave insightful advice for those wanting to write their own musical or play but who may be discouraged by what others say or feel overwhelmed by making their vision come into fruition.
“Stay true to your dreams and don’t let other people discourage you,” said Klein. “That’s one of the reasons why I love this country, and why I’m here, it’s just the encouragement that you get. I feel like the American way of thinking is that even if you fail at least you tried. I think if you strongly believe in something you find people who can believe in it with you and support you.”