ABC debuts an ambitious TV event Monday with the first installment ofWhen We Rise,an eight-hour, four-part miniseries written by Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black that chronicles the lives of activists who have fought for LGBTQ rights over many generations. The sprawling production -- which marks the return of this format to broadcast television after a very long absence -- features a star-studded cast that includes Guy Pierce, Michael Kenneth Williams, Ivory Aquino, David Hyde Pierce, Rosie O’Donnell, T.R. Knight, Matthew Del Negro, Whoopi Goldberg, Rachel Griffiths and Mary-Louise Parker.
In the series Parker (pictured below) portrays real life feminist activist Roma Guy, a woman who in the process of fighting for the rights of her lesbian friends finds her true self. For Parker, the fact that network television was prepared to tackle such an important story head on made her involvement in the project instantaneous.
“It was sent to me to read pretty early on,” she told me recently while promoting the series. “I don't know who had thought of me for it, but I wanted