Rainbow Players Theater Company is proud to present the line up for our inaugural season! Each production will run Friday night at 8pm and Saturdays at 2pm and 7pm. Fifty percent (50%) of the proceeds of the evening performances will benefit MCCLV ministries to the community, while 50% of the matinee proceeds will benefit a GLBTA organization in the Lehigh Valley and throughout the state. Once the theater company is more financially grounded, we intend to donate 100% of the proceeds from each matinee to benefit one or two organizations.
Book by Jim Brochu (bio) Music & Lyrics by Steve Schalchlin (bio) In THE BIG VOICE, Jim Brochu & Steve Schalchlin have musicalized their long term relationship and hilariously proved that theatre is as much a calling as religion. This high energy, razzle-dazzle show chronicles the lives of a Baptist from Arkansas and a Catholic from Brooklyn who find eternal salvation in the temple of musical theatre. The show “traces the couple’s meeting aboard a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, Steve’s struggle with AIDS, the production of their hit Off-Broadway musical THE LAST SESSION, their separation and their reconciliation. It’s a comedy about a ‘gay marriage’ between two men created by the couple themselves.” November 14, 2008 - 8:00 PM November 15, 2008 - 2:00 PM & 7:00 PM |
 Rainbow Players Director Dean Hiatt (left) and company actor Jim Lamb (right) with Steve Schalchlin and Jim Brochu (l-r) outside the Plays & Players Theater at the 2008 Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Theater Festival, June 14, 2008. |
| Matinee Recipient - F.A.C.T. FACT is a non-profit 501c(3) organization committed to raising money to assist individuals and families affected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and to conquer the HIV/AIDS crisis within the Lehigh Valley and surrounding communities. Since 1986 FACT has been identifying, supporting, and monitoring programs that provide direct and educational services within the serviced communities. An all-volunteer organization, FACT has since raised over $2,000,000 for the emergency needs of Greater Lehigh Valley residents affected by HIV/AIDS. As the only all-volunteer HIV/AIDS fundraising organization in the Greater Lehigh and Bucks county region, FACT and it's chapter FACT Bucks County are the funder of last resort for area providers to the HIV/AIDS community. For more information about FACT, go to: www.factlv.org. | |
by Paula Martinac (bio)
A gay-themed comedy on gay marriage rights inspired by the classic "Our Town".
In THEIR TOWN, Margaret Craig, a single mother who has been struggling to support her 16-year-old daughter, has recently
landed a good, solid job: she's been elected town clerk of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire - of Our Town fame. At the same
time, the town's new mayor, Joe Hersey, who ran on the same ticket with Margaret, wants to further his own career and aid
the economy of his beleaguered town by garnering publicity in a sensational way - by performing a legal marriage ceremony
for two of the town's lesbian citizens, longtime residents Ginny Gibbs and Eliza Webb.
But the town council president, Lyle Hawkins starts a "Take Back Our Town" movement that threatens Margaret's new job if
she doesn't obey the state law against same-sex marriage. Worried about her job and certain that gay marriage has nothing
to do with her, Margaret refuses to issue the license. Joe, however, devises another plan, with the help of a gay-rights
attorney, to file a lawsuit against the state, using other, more "professional" couples than Ginny and Eliza. The two women
turn to Joe's gay brother, Charlie, an out-of-town lawyer, to help them win the right to marry in their town.
But in the meantime, Margaret is drawn deeper and more unwillingly into the issue by a personal crisis that brings home the
political issue of equal marriage rights. Leading Margaret in her coming-to-terms process is a statue come-to-life of
Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town and creator of Grover's Corners - who was himself, Margaret learns, a closeted
homosexual.
To read a blog about "Their Town", please visit
www.averygayplay.blogspot.com.
February 6-7, 2009
Matinee Recipient - Turning Point
Turning Point of Lehigh Valley is a safe place where victims of abuse and their children can find refuge. We provide
services in Lehigh and Northampton Counties to more than 5,000 victims of domestic violence each year. Our mission is to
work toward the elimination of domestic violence; increase community awareness of the problem; and empower victims of
domestic violence by providing shelter and support services.
For more information on Turning Point, go to:
www.tplv.org/index
Paula Martinac is the author of three published novels - Chicken,
Home Movies, and the Lambda Literary Award-winning Out of Time - and has also published three non-fiction books
on lesbian and gay culture and politics, including The Lesbian and Gay Book of Love and Marriage (Broadway Books).
Her plays have been produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Ganymede Arts Festival, Pittsburgh New Works
Festival, and Womenscene. After living in New York City for 20 years, she relocated to her hometown of Pittsburgh in 2003
with her partner and dog. She is a member of Pittsburgh PlayWorks, a playwriting lab.
A Theatrical Performance Activist Thoughtfully and humorously exploring queer issues
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March 20, 2009 – 8:00 PM QUEER 101: “Now I know my gAy-B-Cs…” A one-person comedy written and performed by Peterson Toscano March 21, 2009 – 7:00 PM TRANSFIGURATIONS: Transgressing Gender in the Bible As a gay man, Peterson’s journey out of the closet has been long and complicated. After years of submitting to reparative therapy through counseling, ex-gay support groups, and even three exorcisms, Peterson enrolled in the ex-gay residential program, Love in Action. He graduated successfully from the program nearly two years later, but in January of 1999 he finally came OUT and fully accepted himself as a gay man. |
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| Later in 1999, Peterson founded p2son Productions and began performing his one-person plays. A comic character actor
and a playwright, Peterson often draws on poetry, the Bible and other texts as well as extensive interviews to inspire his
theater work. Known for his flawless character transformations, Peterson literally changes the way his whole body and face
appear on stage along with his voice and accent. He made his professional acting debut in the Peter Hanke Play, “Kaspar” at Café Bustello, NYC (1989). His film credits include “Star Queen – A Star is Bored” (2002), “Eli Parker’s Getting Married?” (2001), “Fish Can’t Fly” (2005), “Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement” (2008), “Cure for Love” (2008) and is slated to appear in the documentaries, “This is What Love in Action Looks Like” (2009) and “For Such A Time As This” (2008). Peterson has been featured in the U.S. Media including The New York Times, People Magazine, the Montel Williams Show, Public Radio International, Logo TV, and The Tyra Banks Show. Peterson has also presented his work internationally in Canada, Cameroon, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, England and Wales. He is featured in German and Swedish Wikipedia and has been interviewed on radio and television in Europe and the U.K. Peterson’s published writing credits include pieces has written for The New Statesman, New York Blade, and Planet Out. In 2007, along with fellow ex-gay survivor, Christine Bakke, he created Beyond Ex-Gay (bXg), an on-line resource for ex-gay survivors. Together with SoulForce and The University of California at Irvine, bXg hosted the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference – Undoing the Damage, Affirming Our Lives Together. Also, in 2007, Peterson premiered two new theater pieces, The Re-Education of George W. Bush – No President Left Behind and Transfigurations – Transgressing Gender in the Bible. He has begun work on his next piece which will explore race relations in the US, the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Father/Son issues through the story in the Hebrew scriptures of Abraham and his servant Elieazar. As someone who lived nearly 20 years as an evangelical Christian, Peterson connects regularly with evangelical and conservative Christians around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender concerns. Now a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker), he travels in the ministry with a travel minute that expresses the goals and mission behind his work. Peterson currently lives in Hartford, CT. | |
| We're here; we're queer, but what the heck does it even mean? The creator of Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House--How I Survived the Ex-Gay Movement! presents a hilarious and insightful theater piece, Queer 101--Now I Know My gAy,B,C's. Morphing into a cast of characters, while drawing on the inspiration of poets Audre Lorde, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca, performance artist Peterson Toscano, playfully explores what it means to be queer in the 21st Century. Through this one-man performance piece, Toscano delves into the passion and confusion of internet dating, plumbs the depths of queer history, and humorously exposes the conflicts and contradictions within the queer community today. |
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| From the world’s oldest queer story to the gAy,B,C's, this piece is filled with non-stop comedy with a generous sprinkling
of compelling insights. Regarded for his skillful on-stage transformations, Toscano introduces his audience to characters
who tell original stories in unique voices. Edgy, funny, insightful, "Queer 101" seeks to open minds and hearts to a wild new queer world. |
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Transgender Bible Characters??? You bet! Theatrical performance activist, Peterson Toscano, unearths transgender Bible characters--those people who do not fit in the gender binary, and who in transgressing and transcending gender, find themselves at the center of some the Bible's most important stories. Drawing on inspiration from one-on-one interviews with transgender and genderqueer individuals, Peterson weaves their experiences with the stories and lives of transgender, genderqueer and gender-variant people right on the pages of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Hilarious and moving, Toscano's one-person play deepens well-known (and lesser-known) Bible stories as he presents an array of characters with an array of genders. |
| Who are these transgender Bible heroes (and sheroes)? You will just have to see Transfigurations for yourself! | |
"An Evening of One-Acts"
May 22-23, 2009
A Drama Written and Directed Bruce F. Brown
A guy finds out that his past isn't what he thought it was....
 | Bruce F. Brown has been involved with Rainbow Player's last two productions, as Assistant Director for The Big Voice: God or Merman?, and in the role of Thornton Wilder in Their Town. He has been active in theater since he was seven years old. Among his crowning achievements are the parts of Jip in A MAN'S A MAN, Motel the Tailor in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, Buddy in COME BLOW YOUR HORN, and Cyril in GRAND FINALE. He also started a theater company in the early 80's (the yet-to-be-named theater company, later renamed Brownhall Productions, the TMB Players). Bruce has also written over a dozen dinner theater murder mysteries, most of which have been produced at one place or another. |
A PAUL Presentation
Written & Directed by Paul, our guest performance artist
One man's very funny & heartwarming declaration to the world on discovering his gayness, accepting it, and living it
openly!
A Comedy/Drama Written by Carol Mullen
Two estranged sisters, reunited by the sudden death of their father, must confront the real and imagined barriers that have
kept them apart for more than a decade.
 | Pittsburgh playwright Carol Mullen has been produced by the Acme Theater; Native Aliens Theater Collective; No Name Players; Out Works Festival at Louisiana State University; the Pittsburgh New Works Festival; the Pittsburgh Pride Theatre Festival; Stage Q; Triangle Theater; WingSpace Theater; and Off-Off Broadway at the Emerging Artists Theater. |
Matinee Recipient - Pride of the GLV's Rainbow Scholarship
The Rainbow Scholarship seeks to assist gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI), college-bound teens with
school expenses while increasing the positive visibility of queer youth and promoting awareness and acceptance in the
community at large.
To foster dialogue between administration, counselors, faculty and youth of secondary educational institutions regarding
minority issues, there is an essay contest which is open to all students regardless of sexual orientation or gender
identity. In understanding that open and healthy communication is vital to the awareness and acceptance of diverse
populations, we encourage everyone to participate.
For more information on Pride GLV and the Rainbow Scholarship, go to:
www.prideglv.org
"An Evening of One-Acts & Performance Art"
August 14-15, 2009
Written by Carol Mullen
A lesbian grad student takes a temporary position as a phone sex operator to make ends meet. Though Alex has no difficulty
becoming the voice that’s pumped a thousand hips, she is a little less vocal about letting her new girlfriend in on her
occupation.
Written by F. J. Hartland
Following the death of the family pet, a dysfunctional mother and son find an unusual way to communicate – through
postcards from their dead dog. As Clay, the son, says, “The truth was told in very little space…and shrouded in this fiction
of a traveling dog.” Eventually, the mother and son do find a real connection – or do they?
Matinee Recipient - PA Diversity Network
Fostering strength and vitality in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Community by providing news,
information, presentations, health programs, events and other services.
PA Diversity Network is the parent organization of the Valley Gay Press Newspaper, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and
Transgender (GLBT) Community Opinion and Newspaper of the Greater Lehigh Valley and Berks County, The GLBT Infoline - a
call-in help line for GLBT people seeking information and referrals in the Greater Lehigh Valley and Berks County, Rainbow
Families - an activities group for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Allied parents with children, The PDN Photo
Project - 300 Same-sex Couples: Facing Inequality - a traveling photo show of local same-sex couples to educate the
mainstream community about the lack of same-sex civil marriage and civil union rights in the United States and Pennsylvania,
the PDN Library Project that supports libraries with GLBT resources, the PDN Resource Web Site that has hundreds of local
GLBT-Friendly resources and PDN Speakers on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues bringing groups, organizations,
educational institutions and business corporations presentations on GLBT issues and topics.
For more information on PA Diversity Network, go to:
www.padiversity.org.
"Out in the Silence"
October 2, 2009
 Out in the Silence captures the remarkable chain of events that unfold when a same-sex wedding announcement ignites a firestorm of controversy in a small Pennsylvania town. For more information on Out in the Silence, check out their website at http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence |
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Dean Hamer, producer, co-director, and director of photography. Famous for his scientific research on AIDS, human
sexuality and behavior genetics, Hamer turned to filmmaking convinced that there was a better way to communicate the
complex scientific and social ideas raised by these topics.  |
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 Kathy Springer, an Oil City resident whose teenage son, C.J., was brutally tormented at school because he is gay, sought help from Joe Wilson after reading the wedding announcement in the newspaper. |
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 Roxanne Hitchcock and Linda Henderson, owners of the renovated Latonia Theater, speak with Joe Wilson about their efforts to revitalize the local economy. |
