Now in its 14th year, SCAD TVFest keeps getting bigger and bigger. And this year’s guest lineup included two huge artists in the queer television landscape.
This season’s three-day event ran from Feb. 4-6 and hosted the likes of Quinta Brunson from “Abbott Elementary,” Jeff Probst from “Survivor,” the cast of “Scrubs,” and a packed slate of screenings and premieres.
Out actor Andrew Rannells was also one of this year’s guests, alongside Casey Wilson, his co-host for “The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Big Game.” Wilson has hosted for several years, while Rannells, a guest baker in 2025, now pops up for special events. He took delight in being asked back.
“When I went to compete as a baker, I had such a good time, and everyone was so lovely, and it felt like everyone enjoyed it,” Rannells said. “A year later, when I got a call from Casey asking if I’d like to come do this with [her], it felt like winning the lottery.”
Both hosts agree that baking in a tent with a time clock is stressful, but the amateur contestants are all in it together and rooting each other on. Wilson calls the show soothing and positive, and Rannells appreciates the cozy feel and lack of snark.
Yet, hosting the show has not helped their own baking skills at home, they both note. Rannells, who is married to actor Tuc Watkins, said his husband is a much better baker than he is. When Rannells came back to the show, Wilson joked that she was glad to have him back as long as he wasn’t the one baking again.
Rannells feels blessed to be in an era where the stigma against LGBTQ+ performers has largely eroded. When talking about his role in the play “The Boys in the Band” – which had a revival on Broadway in 2018 and was adapted into a movie for Netflix in 2020 – Rannells said he was struck by the lack of prejudice.
“Mart Crowley had written that play in 1968, and we were doing it 50 years later. That cast was not given the same space or generosity that we all [had],” Rannells said. “I looked around onstage, and I knew all of those guys. We were friends from college. To look around and see us all getting to do this, having other careers, it made me a little emotional to know that the only reason we got to do that is because the original cast did it first.”
Also at SCAD TVFest, Michael Patrick King also appeared for an In Conversation event. He is best known as the Emmy Award-winning writer of “Sex and the City” and its sequel “And Just Like That…”, but has been involved with numerous shows over the years. The third season of his show “The Comeback” with Lisa Kudrow making an unexpected comeback over 20 years after its first season originally aired. The first season was in 2005, and the second season aired in 2014.
“My original vision for ‘The Comeback’ was coming back the next season, but we got canceled,” King said. “From then on, you’re just in some sort of weird tornado of ‘what happened,’ and all of a sudden we came back 10 years later, because they called and said they made a mistake. So then it became this other experience. It built an audience, and after only one season, people were wanting it to happen. I guess DVDs did that. It’s a magical journey.”
King said it’s important for him to include gay themes in his work, which has also included “Cybill” and “2 Broke Girls.”
“I am gay, so I am always looking for characters that can be visible to an audience. There is something powerful about characters in comedy, because the power of a laugh transcends polemics about what people think of things,” King said. “So if you can make an audience laugh at a gay character, then you are making them closer to being their friend. That changes the structure of how you see people.”