FACING EAST Comes To Diversionary Theatre 3/19-4/5

Diversionary Theatre's fifth production of the 2008-2009 season is the parable Facing East by noted LDS (Latter Day Saints) author Carol Lynn Pearson. A Mormon couple confronts the limits of their spiritual teachings upon the suicide of their gay son. The Salt Lake Tribune wrote of the play, which premiered at Plan-B Theatre Company in Salt Lake City in November 2006, "A tightly-wound domestic tragedy...freshly relevant...dares to ask important questions about faith, death and survival." In 2007, Variety said of Plan-B's tour (Off-Off Broadway and San Francisco), "A vivid rumination on grief."

Ruth and Alex McCormick are an upstanding Mormon couple reeling from the suicide of their gay son. In Facing East, they are stuck between the comfort of their faith and the unfamiliarity of their new reality when they meet their son's partner, Marcus, for the first time. Although centered on Mormon characters, the play is for anyone of any faith, anyone with a family, anyone who has felt the pain of loss, anyone with hope for change. Marybeth Bielawski-DeLeo will direct. The cast of three features Dana Hooley, John Polak and Scott Striegel.

The premiere of the play in Salt Lake City in 2006 coincided with the 20th anniversary of Carol Lynn Pearson's seminal book Goodbye, I Love You, the story of her life with her gay husband Gerald, their 12-year Mormon temple marriage, four children, divorce, ongoing friendship, and his death from AIDS in her home, where she cared for him. In 2007 the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Pearson has never remarried. ‘That has been a disappointment in my life,' she said. There's also been grief along with joy, bafflement and a strange sense of wonder in the lives of her children. As for her oldest, Pearson drew a deep breath before relating this chapter. Like her mother, Emily married a gay man and subsequently divorced him. That man is Steven Fales, creator of the widely traveled solo show Confessions of a Mormon Boy. (Fales performed the show at Diversionary during the summer of 2005.) Emily, hewing to her mother's past, is now writing a book about her life with a gay Mormon husband."

Bielawski-DeLeo believes some of the questions raised by the play are ‘How does an individual reconcile his or her devotion to a religion that condemns the essence of who that individual is? How do those who love that individual help or hinder that process of reconciliation? What stands in the way of unconditional love?' She recently directed It's A Wonderful Life at Cygnet Theatre and Terra Nova for Inukshuk Production Co., where she is the founder and Producing Artistic Director. She holds her MA in Theatre Arts with distinction from SDSU's School of Theatre, Television, and Film.

Started in 1986, the mission of Diversionary Theatre is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily.

Facing East will preview on March 19 and 20, and open on Saturday, March 21 and run through Sunday, April 5. Performance times are: Wednesday & Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday & Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday at 2:00 & 7:00pm. Single tickets, priced $29-$33 with discounts for seniors, students and military, are now on sale. For information, call the Diversionary box office at 619.220.0097 or log on to www.diversionary.org.

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