By: Daniel P’Lopez
Photos by Joseph Patrick Conroy / Amerikana Media
Danny Will Die Alone is a series on Dekkoo written, produced, and directed by Jack Tracy. Born to a middle-class family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Jack was the first in his family to go to college. He attended Penn State University before moving to New York and going to law school. Jack currently works as a Chief Product Officer and as a lawyer for a tech start-up.
Like most gay kids, Jack was into the arts, performing, singing, and dancing, which led to the birth of Danny Will Die Alone series. Jack was fortunate to land some roles on some web series and a few music videos. He also starred in an independent movie until Covid hit. Jack wasn’t able to film or do much during the pandemic, so he started to do straight-to-camera video blogs, where he’d talk about dating subjects. It was originally called Dying Alone Together until he started a podcast with some friends about dating stories also called Dying Alone Together.
That was how Danny Will Die Alone was created. The first season has nine episodes, which are short and sweet because they were meant for little web videos. Eventually, Dekkoo saw them and picked up the series.
The show is based on Danny, a gay man living in New York, going through a dating and hook-up phase. It really depicts a true raunchy side of the gay hook-up world with a comedic approach. Danny, also likable in some ways, can be a little off-putting in nature in other ways. Jack described Danny as if Jack had a complete nervous breakdown, lost all semblance of tact, and being extremely judgmental. “It’s like a bizarro alternate universe version of me; I also like to describe him (Danny) as David Rose from Schitt’s Creek’s evil twin.”
Although the show is meant to be fun and campy, it shows many different sides of gay culture and gay people of all types. Jack says, “Every single date depicted in the show is based off of some date that I’ve had. Some of them I embellish a lot in order to make them funny. Some of them are pretty much exactly how it happened.”
I asked Jack if Danny would eventually settle down and find love; Jack explained that Danny is a guy who is close-minded, judgmental, quick to anger, and hypersexual. A lot of things are going to get in his way, “Danny probably needs to become a little more self-aware in order to actually be able to find someone to actually function in a relationship. Which in the show, you’ll see him soften a little and in the future season, we will start to see why he has become the way that he is.”
According to Jack, season three has already been written, and production starts filming in March. There will be six episodes, and they will come out later in the year. Season three will start off with the conclusion of season two, which sets a lot of things in motion, dealing with the consequences of our season finale.
Danny Will Die Alone is Jack’s sole focus at this time; however, Jack is also a recording artist. Many of his songs are in season two, which are off an album called Glorify, coming out in the spring of 2025. Jack’s singles out now are Duality, Fill Me Full, and Overdrive. You can see the videos and live performances on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Jack admits that he is currently single but has a very healthy dating life. He is very happy to be working with Dekkoo. They have a lot of faith in his series. It started as a small project but has grown into something way bigger and deeper with a bigger scale, bigger plot lines, and a great cast, like his co-star Jordan Bell, who plays Matty and gives Danny someone to argue with, says Jack.
To learn more about the show and to follow Jack, you can follow him on social media @jacktracyofficial