We interview Producer/Director Jerry Rapier and Writer Carol Lynn Pearson of the drama "Facing East" produced by Plan B Theatre and playing at Atlantic Stage 2.

JERRY RAPIER] has been Producing Director of Plan-B Theatre Company since 2000, where he has directed MOLLY SWEENEY, THE LARAMIE PROJECT (first small theatre production in the US), MY LEFT BREAST (first English-speaking production not performed by the playwright), HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, ANIMAL FARM, PATIENT A, the revival of HEDWIG, the script-in-hand COLD and the world premieres of AMERIKA (which also played Toronto's Fringe Festival) and FACING EAST (off-Broadway debut).

CAROL LYNN PEARSON is the best-selling author of more than thirty books and plays, including her classic GOODBYE, I LOVE YOU and her new book NO MORE GOODBYES: CIRCLING THE WAGONS AROUND OUR GAY LOVED ONES. Many of her poems have been widely reprinted in such places as Ann Landers' column, CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL, college literary textbooks and the compilation BEGINNINGS AND BEYOND. Pearson has written numerous educational motion pictures, including the well-known CIPHER IN THE SNOW, as well as several plays and musicals, two commissioned by Robert Redford's Sundance Summer Theatre. She has performed her one-woman play MOTHER WOVE THE MORNING more than 300 times internationally. The film version was named "one of the top 25 videos of the year" by BOOKLIST. Her book CONSIDER THE BUTTERFLY was a finalist in the Inspiration/Spiritual category of the 2002 Independent Publishers Book Awards.

Ms. Pearson's prolific career as a writer, poet and performer has taken her all over the world. Her latest stage play, FACING EAST, premiered at Plan-B Theatre Company in Salt Lake City in November of 2006. She holds an MA in theater from Brigham Young University, is the mother of four grown children, and lives in Walnut Creek, California. Visit her at www.clpearson.com.

For tickets and more info click here.

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Broadway Bullet Interview : Jerry Rapier and Carol Lynn Pearson of Facing East

 

BB: Facing East is the first  Off Broadway transfer from a show originating in Utah. And we have the director, JR:, and the playwright, Carol Lynn Pearson, here with us to discuss this exciting event.  So how are you guys doing?

JR:/CLP: Great, thank you.

BB: What is Facing East about?

JR:: It is about an upstanding Mormon couple who are forced to deal with the suicide of their gay son, and the play takes place at his gravesite, where they also encounter his partner for the first time.
 
BB: Now, are the two of you Mormon?

CLP: I am still Mormon. I am active in the church and known as a maverick and a renegade.

JR: And I grew up Mormon, but for me it wasn't a comfortable fit, and so I left the church about ten years ago.

BB: The fact that this deals with homosexuality and the Mormon family in a very different way is,  I can imagine, quite a controversial play coming out of Utah.

JR:: You know, that's what a lot of people have asked first off: "Well, how does Carol Lynn get away with it?" But, really strangely, people expected a lot of controversy, and it was -- we had two sold out runs in Salt Lake City, which was part of the impetus bringing it to New York -- but the reception was surprisingly the opposite:  very conservative people that we didn't expect to embrace it really, really embraced the play and the thought-provoking nature of it.

CLP: The negative response has been minimal. Our audiences have been hugely enthusiastic; the press has been very, very enthusiastic.  We got the award for Best Drama of the Year from the Elias Church-owned Desert Morning News, which was a wonderful thing. I believe that most thinking Mormon people -- and there are a lot of very good, thinking Mormon people -- understand that this is one of the issues that needs to be addressed, and I think a lot of people were very grateful to have this put out in front of us, in a way that is demanding and thought-provoking, but not just under attack; it looks at the issues in a compassionate way.

BB: As I understand it in the Mormon community, it's not a sin to be gay; it is a sin to act on it.

CLP: That is currently the position, yes.

BB: And how do you feel about that position?

CLP: I feel that we are not yet where we want to be in that. I feel that we need to be able to honor the decisions that our homosexual brothers and sisters make around this issue for themselves, and support them in living a life that's honorable, and for those who wish to still participate in the church to be able to do so with respect.

JR:: I think one of the things that people have difficulty understanding about Mormon culture is that it is a culture; it's not just a faith; it's just not something you do on Sunday, [but] it is intended to be, and structured to be, your entire lifestyle.  And so when something isn't acceptable, such as being gay in that culture, it puts people in a very difficult position in actually having to choose to change everything about their life to be true to themselves if they happen to be gay and so it's…a lot of people are really surprised that it's so…this becomes a truly life-and-death situation for gay Mormons, but it really is the culture that makes it so, that it's the only thing they have, so a lot of people look to Carol Lynn, a lot of gay Mormon men have kind of opened the door for the possibility of finding a way to, if not reconcile these two, at least find a way to not let go fully of either one.

CLP: Just a quick note here. I was married for twelve years to a Mormon gay man, and that is how life invited me into this subject. And after the twelve years of a Mormon temple marriage, and four children, and then our anguish, both of us, to realize that his orientation had not changed…we divorced, and remained good friends, and he past away six years later of AIDS, and that was in my home, where I was caring for him, where I wrote Good-Bye, I Love You, a book that sprung open the conversation in our community and in a lot places around this issue, and that's how I was invited into the subject.  I have continued to be there with strong interest and strong friendship for large numbers of, especially Mormon gay people and their families, who don't have a lot of places to go to speak frankly about all of this…and to know that Utah has the highest suicide rate in the nation for young men 15-24, is so outrageous.  And so my outrage around that, and my love for my Mormon community, and my love for my gay and lesbian friends, brought me the inner opportunity of conceiving this play, and then of course the wonderful opportunity of working with Jerry and Plan-B.

JR:: One thing that is really fascinating about this play, and the impact it has --and we were initially concerned that it may be too specifically Mormon to be universal --But, we have had -- especially the second run that we just closed on May 6th in Salt Lake City -- we were really focused on getting feedback from people who were not Mormon, and it's been overwhelmingly so that that the specificity of the play has made it possible for people from other religious backgrounds to place themselves in the play. Catholic folks, Jewish folks…have really made that clear to us, that they see their own family dynamic, and even people who are not necessarily directly connected to any gay issues, still see themselves in this dynamic of the play, about parents trying to come to some sort of understanding of how their child was different than they tried to shape him or expected him to be, which I think is something just about anyone can identify with on some level.

BB: : I think the interesting dichotomy for me, knowing a lot of Mormons, that I've never quite understood…I actually also personally know a lot of Mormon people who struggled with their sexuality and I know a lot of Mormon families, and it seems so odd, out of most Mormons I know…while there are some things about the religion that I disagree with, I think the core is the family, and they seem so nurturing, and most of the Mormons I know have been light-years nicer than a lot of other people, that it's hard to imagine…I grasp a lot of my other friends who've had problems as they came out. The Mormons are more confused about it, like, 'Why are you…why is this an issue? You have a family that loves you."

CLP: You are so right. For the truly 100% orthodox Mormon, who believes fully that family is all, and that we will be with our families in the next world forever and ever, if we all are on the same page of doing all of the things -- keeping all of the commandments, keeping all of us, just all of us moving forward in the same direction --  when one person steps out of the line, that really brings immediate terror into a fully believing family because that suggests that this person, whom they love dearly, is going to be lost, and I can hardly think of any conflict greater than the truly believing Latter Day Saint homosexual, especially man, on whom the pressure is so great, and who has tried everything:  fasting, prayer, reparative therapy, all of the things that he has been promised would be what would heal him, and then to find that that doesn't happen, he's in a place of anguish that I can hardly begin to fathom.  And for many of them, the despair is so huge that the only way out they can see is to destroy themselves, and that is so outrageous.  It is beyond, to me, anything that is acceptable.  So I am thrilled that I have my little, tiny place in helping to bring a better light to that.

JR:: It is that pressure of family, that is where the terror comes from, because it is a very patriarchal faith; it is very traditionally accepted that Mormons are known for having large numbers of children, and the idea of the ultimate importance of family, and having a large family, and perpetuating this idea of family, and if you're gay, you're not necessarily going to have a family in the same manner, and so there's that additional pressure of disappointing your generations as a family.  Also, it's hard to find your place in that dynamic if you are not offering what is expected, and I'm speaking from personal experience -- that the most difficult thing for my own parents was not me leaving the church, but the idea that I may not have children to carry on the name, and therefore, ensure that what Mormon folk refer to as "the eternal family," continuing with me; like, I'm not imputing anything at this point into family and it's really difficult for my parents to accept that and understand that, and there's a lot of gay men that are in that same situation.  It's a very unique pressure, not that Mormon men are the only ones to feel that pressure, but it's very palpable within the faith.

CLP: But just being single is not the huge thing.  This is sort of, maybe, the last abomination that we have to deal with. Homosexuality, according to strict religious biblical interpretation, is an abomination, and that is what gets in the way of being able to look at one another as human beings, and revisit scripture and say, "Look we already pick and choose out of the Bible what we want to take with us. Why don't we just pick love for a change?"  That's my hope of what we  contribute here.

BB: Switching gears on that just a little bit..Just on a technical angle, what has the process been like logistically for your transfer?

JR:: I'll sleep at some point, but as I am the producer of the show as well, it's been a very exciting thing to work on, but also, I'm terrified I've left something undone.  Our funder, a lovely man named Bruce Bastian, who has a long history with Carol Lynn -- his story of coming out and accepting who he was, is very much connected with Carol Lynn's own life and their families cross -- he was generous enough to fund the original production in Salt Lake City. which at that point, that was only our intention: to produce the play in Salt Lake City. He leaned over to Carol Lynn at the final preview and said to her, "This is the best money I've ever spent. What do we do now?" So we met with him, and the discussion led to where we are now, and he generously is our angel for this production; it was his impetus that got us here, and we are fortunate that we are not stressed financially out about the production.  We got a waiver from Equity to bring the entire cast; we felt like it's an incredibly Utah story and these three actors that we have, Jay Perry, Jayne Luke, and Charles Lynn Frost all are lifetime Utahans, and they bring their own understanding of that culture with them. Charles, who plays the father Alex, spent an entire life as an upstanding Mormon man with his children and his grandchildren, and came out as gay men less than 10 years ago. Jayne Luke, who was the former artistic director of Sundance Summer Theater with Robert Redford, grew up in Provo, Utah, which is arguably the most conservative town in the world, and her perspective, even though she is not LDS any longer, she has this amazing respect for these women that are like the roles that she's playing. Jay, who plays Marcus in the show, is a Catholic boy who grew up as a straight boy in Utah, so, he's got that Utah perspective, but it's a little bit different than from inside the church. And not that other actors certainly couldn't play these roles, but there's an immediate shorthand that I felt was important to keep intact, and I feel like that the story has a little bit more power knowing it's all from Utah. And as you mentioned earlier, we are the first company to transfer one of our productions to an Off Broadway run. There have been other shows that started in Utah that have been picked up commercially; but it's unique in that way.

BB: Alright, it's playing at the Atlantic Stage 2 and when/where can you get tickets?

JR:: It begins previews on May 25th, with an official opening on May 29th, then we run through June 17th. Tickets are available on our website, planbtheare.org/facingeast or just through ticketcentral.com or you can call (212) 279-4200.

BB: Thank you so much for coming down and chatting. As I understand, Jerry, you're a regular listener as well.

JR:: Yes, yes I love Broadway Bullet.

BB: Good luck with everything.

CLP: Thank you so much.

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You can listen to this interview and many other great features for free on Broadway Bullet vol. 116. Subscribe for free so you don't miss an episode.

 or MP3 Feed with XML