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Joel Kim Booster’s Gay Fire Island Rom-Com Gets Greenlight

"You hate to see it, but unfortunately I am still employed."

Here's some good news that may have slipped through the coronavirus cracks this week.

Quibi, a new short-form digital streaming service, has greenlit Joel Kim Booster’s Trip, a gay rom-com series set on New York's famed Fire Island, Deadline reports.

"You hate to see it, but unfortunately I am still employed," the 32-year-old comic tweeted. "I know a lot of people are sort of exhausted by the amount of new streaming platforms coming out (same tbh) but I have to tell you it has not been easy to sell a show about queer people doing queer things and up until now next to impossible to get one greenlit. So this is cool."

It was announced in September that Booster and producer Jax Media were developing a gay rom-com based on an 1813 novel of manners.

Trip, starring and written by Booster, "is an unapologetic, modern day rom-com inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice," according to an official synopsis. "The story centers around two best friends who set out to have a legendary week-long summer vacation with the help of cheap rosé and a cadre of eclectic friends.”

“For the last couple of years I’ve been threatening to pitch a gay Pride and Prejudice adaptation that takes place entirely on Fire Island and I finally found a platform foolish enough to do it," Booster previously tweeted.

"This is my version of Sandler telling Netflix he has to film his next movie on the Amalfi Coast or some shit. Only I’m making all my friends wear speedos on Long Island in April," the Sunnyside star continued. "I’m just laying the ground work for my real passion project: Persuasion, set on an Atlantis Cruise."

Booster, who was born in South Korea and adopted as an infant by a white Christian family, began his stand-up career in Chicago and moved to New York City in 2014. With him at the helm, expect Trip to be heavy on pride, light on prejudice.

"My work really allows me to express pride in a lot of different ways," Booster told Logo last year. "I’m telling my own story on stage through stand up. It gives me license to speak without a filter in ways that I probably wouldn’t in everyday life."

"I think my work as a comedian and as a writer is anti-shame, which is sort of the definition of pride in a lot of ways," he added. "Not being ashamed of who I am, where I came from, what I do, and talking about that onstage allows me to show pride in all of that."

Booster, who co-hosts the RuPaul's Drag Race podcast What the Tuck?, has also written for shows like Big MouthBilly on the Street, and The Other Two.

Quibi launches April 6.

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