After eight years in the national touring company of Disney’s blockbuster musical The Lion King, Atlanta native Courtney Thomas, 30, is used to hearing applause. But when the show opens at The Fox Theatre for a three-week run, the applause of his dad, Beau Harris, will pierce through to become a singular sound in Thomas’ ears. A swing performer and dance captain, Thomas says he rarely gets nervous before performances but admits the matinee performance his dad attends will be different.
“He’s been with me through this whole journey,” Thomas said of Harris. “So he’s seen every dance class I came home from crying. He saw me wanting to give up. We lived so far away at one point that I would wake up at 5 a.m. to get to school on time. Then my day wouldn’t end until almost one or two o’clock, and Marta stops at a certain time, so I would stop as far as I could on the bus or train and walk two miles home every night if he couldn’t pick me up because he sometimes worked nights.”
Raised on the Southwest side of Atlanta, Thomas attended North Atlanta High School before relocating briefly to West Virginia with his mother where he graduated. It was in high school that he began honing his craft after being inspired by early 2000s dance movies like “Step Up,” “You Got Served,” and “Stomp The Yard.” But he says it was “High School Musical,” another Disney sensation years earlier, that lit a fire within him for dance that still burns brightly on stages across America.
“I remember looking at the choreography, and I didn’t even know it was choreography at the time. I was just like, ‘Oh my God, I want to learn this,'” Thomas said.
It was also around this time when Thomas began acknowledging his sexuality.
“It was one of those things where I realized dance was a way for me to express myself and not to be afraid of who I was, not just as an artist but also as a proud gay man,” he said.
Thomas recalls receiving advice from the man he calls his best friend as the impetus for living authentically in every area of his life.
Whenever you’re ready
“One day after a performance, my dad said, ‘You’re so beautiful up there. I’m so proud of you. We can talk whenever you’re ready.’”
Harris was uniquely positioned through his own life experience to listen to and embrace his son once he found the courage to share his truth.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Thomas recalls Harris saying to him before revealing, “My dad is also gay.”
A 10th-grade crush on a fellow dance classmate was when Thomas said he knew he was ready to come out.
“I came home, and I was like, Dad, I think it’s time to have the talk,” he recalls. “I came out to him, and he said, ‘Great, glad we know this. Now you can start living your life.'”
Thomas’ crush, however, turned out to be straight. But his relationship with his chosen father flourished.
“I want to make him my son,’ Thomas recalls Harris asking his mother, who initially raised him alone. “And she was like, ‘Absolutely. He could use the father figure.’ “Eventually, he fully adopted me,” Thomas said. “He’s been my dad as long as I can remember.”
Thomas tells Georgia Voice that he expects to be overcome with emotion when he gets to perform for his dad.
“Blood doesn’t make you family,” Thomas said. “I choose you, which makes us as close and tight as anybody.”
Harris still resides in Atlanta. Thomas says his dad has intentionally chosen a matinee performance to ensure he’s alert and won’t miss a moment of his son’s artistry, which, as a swing performer can be different depending on the day.
“There will be days where I’m a zebra, a giraffe, a gazelle, a shrub, and at any moment’s notice, I have to be ready to go on,” Thomas said. “So if someone gets injured or someone gets sick or someone just malfunctions in costuming, “I’m expected to immediately jump on stage and make the show go as seamlessly as possible.”
It’s a job expectation he has met for nearly a decade on tour with The Lion King, which, despite its grueling schedule and impact on creating and maintaining personal relationships, Thomas says he wouldn’t change a thing about his journey with the show.
“It sounds nice to be in a stable place, and I’m sure later down the line if it [Broadway] was offered, I would probably say yes, but as of now, I love traveling,” Thomas said, who plans to arrive in Atlanta early to spend a few days with his family before opening night at The Fox.
When it comes to maintaining contact with his dad, Thomas admits it can be a game of cat and mouse.
“He and I constantly schedule calls, and it’s so funny if we go more than two weeks without talking to each other, he’ll call me and say, ‘Tag you’re it,’ and just hang up,” he said. “And I’m like, Okay, it’s my turn,” Thomas said through laughter.
In a way, Thomas’ performance before his hometown audience, and especially his dad, will be his turn to show how far a dream born on the Southwest side of Atlanta can take a different kind of Simba and Mufasa.