Pisces Moon’s Outreach Program for Queer Youth seeks to change community attitudes by promoting dialogue and understanding of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) experience among high school students and other young people.
The seeds of Pisces Moon’s Outreach Program for Queer Youth were planted in 2002, when Bonnie Ronzio, then co-chair of the Queer Youth Leadership Awards (QYLA), invited the cast of Pisces Moon’s 2002 production of The Laramie Project to perform segments of the play at that year’s awards ceremony. The Laramie Project examines the effect of a gay hate crime – the murder of young college student Matthew Shepard – on a community and ultimately, the world. We were delighted to honor the outstanding young awardees by bringing the message of The Laramie Project to the ceremony. A few months after QYLA, Kathleen Martinelli bought 60 seats for the May 1, 2003 performance of our re-mounting of The Laramie Project. Her intention was to donate tickets so that the students of Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory High School could see the play with their friends and families. A Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) was forming at the school, with the goals of creating a safe environment for students to support each other and learn about homophobia and other oppressions, to educate the school community about homophobia, gender identity, and sexual orientation issues, and to join with other GSAs in fighting discrimination, harassment, and violence in schools. Kathleen felt that The Laramie Project gave voice to those issues and supported the goals of the GSA.
Scene from "The Laramie Project"
Pisces Moon validated the efforts of Kathleen and Georgiana Bruce Kirby's GSA by hosting a post-show discussion after the May 1 performance. The discussion centered around the issues of homophobia and involved the cast of The Laramie Project and more than 60 students from Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory High School, the majority of whom were lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals. It was such a success that, a few weeks later, Charlotte Reynolds, a cast member, participated in a Gay-Straight Alliance Symposium for High School students on May 18, 2003 where the theme was The Laramie Project. Charlotte, who is a lesbian, participated in the 2003 Queer Youth Leadership Awards with Christopher Sugarman, Pisces Moon?s Co-Founder, who is gay.
Of the post-show discussion, GSA symposium and QYLA experience, Charlotte wrote:
My high school and its community did not have any sort of outreach program for gays and lesbians. Homosexuality just wasn't talked about. Being involved with Pisces Moon Productions' The Laramie Project in the spring of 2003 was an eye-opening experience. Our interactions with local high school students were heartwarming and fun. The discussion we had as a cast with the Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) at Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School (GBK) after one of our shows made me feel like I had a contribution to make both as an actor and as a lesbian. The focus in The Laramie Project on homosexuality and reactions to it in Small Town America showed how awareness is a huge factor in learning a different, foreign culture and how it can make you mentally and spiritually stronger.
The Queer
Youth Leadership Awards (QYLA), to which I went as a representative of
Pisces Moon Productions, were a great opportunity to reward brave high
school students that made the effort to change how things were in their
schools and made me look sadly back into my own high school years.
After the last performance of The Laramie Project,
the GSA at Kirby Preparatory School held a symposium in which we
discussed the effects of the play on the audience. As a cast member, I
was able to give my responses to each phase of the production. We
talked about reactions to the emotionally intense scenes, quotes we
connected with or just enjoyed, the characters and their development
through each act, and personal experiences that relate to being gay or
lesbian. I related how the show affected me so much that I cried during
every performance.
Being involved in these events was a great
experience, but there is still so much we could accomplish with an
outreach program. What is very important is reaching out to the people
that do not identify as gay or lesbian and teaching them about what it
means to us to be gay.
As a lesbian, I feel incredibly close
to the play itself, but Pisces Moon Productions' strong stance and
efforts to bring people together made it an experience I will never
forget.
While researching the issues in The Laramie Project,
we learned of a study that recently found that students who are gay or
thought to be gay are most likely to be the targets of bullying in the
schools -- even more than children who are overweight or have
disabilities. In the study, more than three-quarters of students
witnessed harassment of kids who are gay or are perceived to be gay in
their schools or neighborhoods, while more than 90 percent said they
hear gay epithets, many every day, according to the survey. This study,
as well as audience response to the play and the need demonstrated by
the GSA's at the Symposium led Pisces Moon to look for funding to expand
outreach efforts in support of queer youth. In January 2004, Ralph
Alpert of ADAM contacted us. ADAM, a funding collaboration of Ralph,
Michael Dively and Weston Milliken, donates resources to projects that
empower queer youth. They had learned of our efforts and wanted to
help. ADAM?s sponsorship enabled us to develop an Outreach Program for
Queer Youth around our February 2004 production of Swimming in the Shallows by Adam Bock.
Thanks to a grant from ADAM, Pisces Moon distributed 160 free tickets to queer youth for designated performances of Swimming in the Shallows.
We held discussion groups with the audiences after the shows. Pisces
Moon reached out to Gay-Straight Alliance groups at San Lorenzo Valley
High School, Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory High School, Santa Cruz
High School, Harbor High School and Watsonville High School. We also
distributed tickets at the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender
Center at UCSC, the Equinox Center and the BiGALA at Cabrillo College.
The ADAM grant also helped to fund our performance of segments from Swimming in the Shallows at the 2004 Queer Youth Leadership Awards. To find out more about Swimming in the Shallows, please go to our Past Shows 1999-2005 page and scroll down to Swimming in the Shallows.
Swimming in the Shallows
explores relationship start-ups and breakdowns. It looks at two
lesbians who are planning a commitment ceremony, a heterosexual couple
who are challenged by the wife's sudden spiritual awakening and a gay
man who re-examines his life after a succession of one-night stands,
changing his self-destructive behaviors to find love. Through
charismatic characters and warm and humorous dialogue, the play
approaches queer lifestyles, queer-straight friendships and queer and
straight relationship issues with a natural openness.
Swimming in the Shallowswent
on to play off-Broadway, and in January 2006, was nominated for the
17th Annual GLAAD Media Awards honoring "fair, accurate and inclusive"
representations of gay individuals in the media. The annual awards
honor the best in journalism, film, TV and theatre. Adam Bock's play
was nominated in the category of Outstanding New York Theatre: Broadway and Off-Broadway, one of three theatre-related categories.
Our
Outreach Program provided LGBT youth with an opportunity to see a play
in a safe, supportive environment, particularly those who otherwise
couldn't afford to go. The play spoke directly to LGBT youth and their
issues, portraying them with authenticity, integrity and respect. Being
in a small room with others like them, sharing an emotional experience
-- not just with queer and straight audience members, but also with
queer actors and production people -- brought closeness as a community.
The post-show discussions were led by members of the cast and crew who
are part of the LGBT community. Judging from their direct response and
written comments, the participants felt safe with us, identified with
our company and its goals, felt supported, and wanted us to continue to
offer the Outreach Program.
In 2008, our Queer Youth Outreach expanded even more around our third production of The Laramie Project, which we reprised in October to mark the 10-year anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. Thanks to a generous grant from the Diversity Partnership Fund of the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County, Pisces Moon was able to mount the production and offer related educational and advocacy events to the public free of charge. The Diversity Partnership Fund also provided for free tickets to the play for students in high school GSA’s (Gay-Straight Alliances) and campus diversity groups. After the Sunday performances of The Laramie Project, representatives of Triangle Speakers held talkbacks with the audience, answering questions about sexuality and other issues raised in the play and prompting dialogue to promote respect and strengthen alliances between straights and queers. For more information about 2008's The Laramie Project and Pisces Moon's outreach, education and advocacy around it, please click here.
Our goal for the Pisces Moon
Outreach Program is to increase our efforts to change community
attitudes by promoting dialogue and understanding of the LGBT
experience. As related by Charlotte Reynolds, and with so many others
in our community, response to our plays and outreach efforts has been
described as "life transforming" by both queer and straight
individuals. Audiences of all ages are exposed to successful actors --
many of whom are queer -- and a successful company that portrays queers
in an affirming, validating manner. We hope to help increase
self-esteem by providing a vehicle for queer youth to see people like
themselves dealing with the challenges that they face in their schools
and in our society. As a young woman wrote after seeing The Laramie Project and participating in the Candlelight Vigil on October 12, 2008:
The vigil last night was beautiful and deeply moving. I feel blessed to be part of a greater whole after spending so much of my life feeling anything but.
We are grateful to Bonnie Ronzio for her
vision and Kathleen Martinelli for giving young people and their
families the opportunity to share that vision. We are especially
grateful to Ralph Alpert, Michael Dively and Weston Milliken of ADAM
and for the Diversity Partnership Fund for recognizing the value of our work in the queer youth community and
for making it possible for us to continue that work.
For more information, or to make a tax-deductible donation
to support our efforts, please contact Susan Myer Silton at
susan@piscesmoon.org. You can also mail a check to Pisces Moon at P.O.
Box 3422, Santa Cruz, CA 95063. Thank you!
