Penrith’s PFLAG playwright

I started in musicals when I was 13, at the Blacktown City Community Theatre. I really got into it, and studied all my favourite musicals and later studied music composition at university. I’ve also had the opportunity to be musical director for the company’s last three pantomimes.

Last year I wrote the rock music score for Peter Pan In Outer Space. Writing plays is something I’ve only recently got into, but there aren’t a lot of places to put on plays in Penrith.

We set up a Penrith-based theatre production company called Utopian Productions Australia to put on material with a smaller cast and higher quality productions. But people don’t really want to see that stuff, not out here.

The BCCT holds Four Short Plays Plus each year for people in the area who write plays and want to get them performed. I was lucky to get my first play Boys Don’t Cry on stage as part of that.

The play was a little bit of everyone’s coming-out story. He comes out to his family, and they go along to PFLAG. The father, who was homophobic the whole time, says, Look, I don’t really understand this thing but I still love you.

Because the play was put on in Blacktown -“ Homophobia Central, really -“ I wasn’t expecting to get a positive response but it was quite successful and had very good crowds.

I wanted to write about what I knew. So it was a bit of my coming-out story, and also the stories that I’d read in books and heard at PFLAG.

I started at PFLAG about a year and half ago after coming out to my mum. She wanted to meet other people who had gay kids, and I tagged along for a stickybeak. We ended up going every month.

Quite a few parents bring their children with them, so I became friends with them as well. We go for the social life. This year I was elected onto the committee along with my mum.

PFLAG asked me if I’d like to speak at schools about coming out and homophobia. We’ve had kids come up asking for brochures for their parents. It’s a good group, always raising money to help out support services.

The people from PFLAG came and saw my play. They said, This play is brilliant, people need to see this. I don’t really know if what they were saying was true, but I blindly applied to run it as part of Mardi Gras, and they accepted.

So I’m putting on three short plays, including Boys Don’t Cry, in a collection called Rainbow Tears. They’ll be playing at Marrickville Town Hall, a venue that is completely new for me.

At this point, we’re just sailing by in terms of funding. PFLAG has agreed to pay for the hall. There are other costs but Mum and I are just going to keep asking around for funding. If there are any profits, a percentage will go back to PFLAG.

The first play is called Not In My Design, which is about gay suicide and ex-gay camps.

I had a look at all these different gay camps, particularly via blogs. One young gay boy in America who was being sent to these camps said he was thinking of suicide. That inspired it, really.

It’s an issue in our society that gay people are six times more likely to commit suicide. I wanted to comment on that, on why.

At the beginning he gets gay bashed on the street, but you don’t know why. His Christian mother is sending him to this camp, and his father is quite homophobic and volatile. It’s quite horrific, very in your face.

At least we go and put out a message. Hopefully we move someone, inspire someone to get off their bum and do something, educate at schools or stand up to homophobic remarks.

All Rights Reserved is about gay marriage, gay rights, which is in the media a lot lately. It’s about two men who’ve been in a relationship for 15 years, and one of them has found out he’s got a brain tumour, with only a month to live.

His homophobic parents come back and shut out the partner, legally, and so he can’t be with his partner in the last moments of life.

It’s true, it happens; I spoke to some doctors and nurses who’ve seen it happen. I’ve changed dates, changed diseases, but the overall theme of not being able to marry, not having legal protection is a problem that needs to be addressed. In Western Sydney these things could happen to anyone.

The cast are all people I know from musical theatre. Some have studied in NIDA; a few have been in theatre for the past 40 years, brilliant people. Others are new to theatre but they’re doing so well, they have a passion for it. It’s great to give them the opportunity to be part of something like this.

I was telling one of the cast about difficulties getting sponsors; she pulled out $100 and said, Put this towards the production. I felt really bad, like a charity case. But she said, I really believe in what you’re doing.

Now that I’ve finished my degree, I’ve got more time to write. I’ve been working on new ideas. I want to keep writing, anything educational, whether it’s touching on racism, ageism. If I can give them something to think about, then that’s what I’d like to do. I get a buzz from doing that.

The teachers at Xavier College instilled that in me, the desire to reach and educate people. I really loved my school; I still speak with my religion teachers there, I’ve come out to them. They were really good to me.

I want to go back to Xavier to teach when I finish my Masters of Teaching. To continue what they did for me.

Rainbow Tears plays from 26 to 28 February, 7:30pm, at Marrickville Town Hall. Bookings on 9673 2032 or [email protected].

Interview by Harley Dennett