Gay actor Larry Ray’s coming-out kiss was like a scene out of a sweet musical. It was the early aughts, and Ray, then a 21-year-old musical theatre major at Arizona State University, was working for the summer at Quisisana Resort, a one-of-a-kind seasonal vacation spot on a crystal lake in the woods of western Maine. Every year, a cast and crew of young adults from all over the country—most of them current performing arts students or recent graduates launching their professional careers—come to “Quisi” to spend a few months living, working and making magic together. By day, they maintain the 56-acre property’s 40 guest cottages and tree-lined paths, help guests hit the water on kayaks and paddleboards, and serve as waitstaff in the white tablecloth-draped dining room, where walls of windows overlook the placid lake, towering pine trees and stunning sunsets. In the evenings, these same staff members show off their Broadway-caliber talents in the resort’s grand performance hall and treat guests to nightly shows, from cabaret revues to operas, chamber music concerts and full-scale stage musicals.
On this particular summer night, Ray said, he was standing in front of the main lodge, eating a chocolate chip cookie, when one of his Quisi coworkers, a handsome Australian baritone singer, surprised him with a smooch. “He told me I tasted like chocolate,” Ray recalls wistfully today. “I fell in love that summer. Suddenly, I came to terms with all these feelings and emotions that I had hidden for so long and didn’t acknowledge. But now I was in a safe, supportive environment with loving people who accepted me. That’s how Quisi makes everyone feel.”
More than 20 years later, Ray, now an NYC-based performer, continues to work at Quisisana every summer. He is manager of the all-inclusive resort’s dining room, where guests—nearly all of whom come for weeklong stays—gather for three elegant meals daily when they hear the ring of the dinner bell echo through the treetops. In fact, just about anyone who visits this unique resort returns over and over again, positively smitten with its rare combination of nostalgic traditions and progressive sensibility. On one hand, for instance, it’s a place with purposefully limited Wi-Fi—the better to promote real human connections over morning coffees on the main lodge’s lofted deck, glasses of wine sipped on the sandy beaches or friendly rounds of volleyball or tennis. On the other, it’s a place where you might see the phrase “Love Is Love” stitched on staff uniform sleeves and take in LGBTQ-favorite productions like “Rent” and “Kinky Boots” included in seasonal lineups.
“It was a privilege and blessing to grow up living and working in a place where I hung out with gay artists all the time, and learned early on that people are people,” says Sam Orans, who spent his childhood and teen years summering at Quisisana and now co-owns and runs the resort with his wife, Nathalie. Although Quisisana has operated as a retreat for music lovers since the early 1900s, its modern chapter as a more robust vacationland for the performing arts began in 1984, when it was purchased by Sam’s widowed mother, Jane Orans. Nathalie, a soprano singer, arrived to work at Quisi in 1994; she and Sam sparked a romance that has burned bright ever since.
Besides being a big culture vulture, Jane Orans, who passed in 2020, was a colorful character with a bevy of gay friends, a free spirit and a reputation for being fiercely inclusive as well as highly protective of her staff and guests. This was quickly apparent to Marshall Taylor as soon as he arrived to Quisi in 1989 to work as a performing busboy. “It was obvious to me that there was a big gay community here that was not just tolerated, but fully supported,” said Taylor, recalling how Jane Orans kept a small bucket of condoms in the staff bathroom to encourage safe summer loving during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Taylor has been the artistic director at Quisi since 2014 and is responsible for curating the entertainment lineups. For the 2026 season, that includes the musical “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and the comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance,” among other shows.
As a now-rare summer stock destination for working actors and musicians, Quisisana has produced a number of notable names: Peabody Award winner Bridget Everett, creator of the very queer and critically acclaimed HBO series “Somebody Somewhere,” is a Quisi alum, for one. The artistic opportunities and nurturing energy that the resort offers remains deeply appreciated by staff and guests today, said Antonio Porciello, a 23-year-old New York-based performer who has worked two summers at the resort to date. In 2025, he starred as the titular Frog in the resort’s production of “Frog & Toad,” a musical for children based on gay author Arnold Lobel’s series of books about a special friendship between two amphibian boys. The experience of performing for young guests reinforced for Porciello, who is gay, that he wants to have his own kids one day, and he even met a family he now babysits for in NYC to supplement his acting income. In addition to the majority of the staff being LGBTQ-identifying, he said, the resort attracts a very large number of gay guests and families—and in his experience, even the straight folks are universally broad-minded. “I mean, it’s a theater camp, so you know what you’re signing up for,” he says, laughing. “It’s going to be full-blown gay.”
Rhode Island native Jonah King, another working performer from Quisi, agrees. Growing up, he says, he was the kind of boy who wanted to “run around in a tutu and pink flip flops,” which wasn’t exactly embraced by his schoolmates. So it was incredibly liberating for him to perform in drag in “Kinky Boots.” his first show at Quisisana. “It was a huge healing moment for my inner child,” said King. He sees the resort as a sanctuary where everyone is free to express themselves, whether they’re on stage or in the audience. “It’s a tremendous community,” he said. One worthy of a standing ovation for many sweet summers to come.
More: quisisanaresort.com
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