In the fall of 2013, Jessica Duvall approached the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies about using the Onyx Theatre for a production called “Coming Out Monologues Project.”
The fourth annual “Coming Out Monologues Project” at Kennesaw State was produced through a collaboration of KSU’s Department of Theatre and Performance Studies and GLBTIQ Student Programs. The piece was performed once on Oct. 6 and twice on Oct. 7. After a rehearsal process of only about five days, KSU theatre students performed dramatic readings of “coming out” stories from KSU and the greater metro-Atlanta area.
“We take coming out stories from the campus community – and that’s the greater campus community, so that’d be students, staff, faculty, alumni, people who have some sort of a tie with Kennesaw in the metro-Atlanta area — and they submit the stories to us in a monologue format,” said Duvall. “Then, student actors from the theatre department will come together to put the show together,” she said.
The audience was greeted by a rainbow lighting effect on the floor. The stage was set with stools and acting blocks for the actors to sit on, with a single music stand upstage center.
The show was preceded by an introduction from Duvall, now the Assistant Director of Multicultural Student Affairs, and director Karen Robinson, faculty member and Assistant Chair in the TPS Department.
The actors were clothed mostly in black, but each wore an article of clothing representing a color of the rainbow. The first piece, “Manhattan Rooftop,” prepared by KSU alumni Jennifer Butler and performed by freshman Jalen Davidson, immediately drew the audience in with its humor and relevance. The piece was from the perspective of a young man whose parents refused to let him attend Gay Pride in New York, but he went anyway.
The pieces discussed not only issues of sexuality, but gender, with several pieces from the perspective of transgender or gender non-conforming people.
In the talk-back after the show, “Desserts and Dialogue,” sponsored by Fifth Third Bank, the audience had the opportunity to talk with the actors and coordinators about the show and the issues it touched on.
“The project is a rewarding experience for our students and for the audiences that come,” said Robinson. “Every year, there have been about 15 of our majors that have participated in this project, and I can say with assurance that with the people who perform, I hear them make statements about how they’re totally enlightened and their understanding is expanded about the kinds of challenges – and the joys – that folks in GLBTIQ community undergo.”
Of the 11 pieces performed, six were written by KSU students, and five were prepared by KSU alumni, Jennifer Butler. One of the actors, Michael Risacher, junior theatre major, submitted a monologue of his own. In the piece he wrote, “Princess,” he tried to “compensate sadness with humor.”
He said his coming out story was in fact “much darker and more sensitive” than what he wrote, but he wanted to find the comedy in his own story, which was about a crush he had on an older, straight boy in middle school.
“I’m Amazing at Answering Questions” by Jeremy Collins told the story of a man who only produced a third of the testosterone young men usually produce, and his struggle in deciding whether he should take testosterone or estrogen supplements. Risacher explained that in his preparation, Robinson encouraged him to really embody the “mannerisms of a sick person,” and to explore “what it means to be trans.”
Butler prepared almost half of the pieces performed. She contacted LGBTIQ people in the Atlanta area, set up a tape recorder, and talked to them about their stories. She then cut down the material to pieces about five minutes long.
“The best word I can use to describe the experience is ‘fulfilling,’” Butler said.
Jackie Lenz, a freshman theatre student, closed the show with a poem titled “Violet Crowns: Part II.” This was Lenz’s first production with TPS, and she said she could have had “no better first experience” and that she was “honored to tell these stories.”
The last line of Lenz’s poem captured the sentiments of almost every piece: “I’m not coming out, I’m letting you in.”
The theatre department will open their fall musical, “A Man of No Importance,” which runs Oct. 12 – 23 Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Stillwell Theatre.
On Thursday, Oct. 27, GLBTIQ Student programs will host a National Coming Out Day Festival on the campus green from 11-3.
