BTL Staff
WASHINGTON D.C. – The creators of Will & Grace, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, traveled to Washington D.C. today [Aug. 19] to donate items from the hit show to be added into the Smithsonian.
As an effort to document LGBT history the National Museum of American History will add materials from Will & Grace. The items include copies of Mutchnick's correspondence with HRC and copies of the show's scripts. NBC will also donate props from the show, which will include the signboard for "Grace Adler Interior Design", Will Truman's framed diploma from Columbia University, Renee Richard's tennis racket and the original transgender pride flag created by Monica Helms.
In an interview with the AP Kohan said "These particular guests that were invited into people's living rooms happened to be your gay friend. I don't think people really had the opportunity to have that before, and it served to, I think, make people recognize that your close friends were gay."
The show aired from Sept 1998 to May 2006 and was groundbreaking, bringing open LGBT characters and LGBT culture into millions of living rooms.
"There have always been gender non-conforming people in the U.S., and we've made contributions and lived life since the beginning of the country," said Curator Katherine Ott who focuses on sexuality and gender. "It's not talked about and analyzed and understood in the critical ways in which it should be. So for us to build the collection means we can more fully document the history of this country."
