Peterson Toscano plays five characters in ‘Doin’ Time in the Homo
No Mo Halfway House — How I Survived the Ex-Gay Movement!’ The play
highlights a 12-step Christian program designed to ‘save’ gay men
from homosexuality. (Photo by Roy Steele)
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KEITH A. CAMBREL
Friday, January 23, 2004
COMING TO TERMS with one’s sexual orientation is hard enough for anyone,
but for those who have a group of people instructing them to reject their natural
instincts, it can be torture.
“Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House — How I Survived
the Ex-Gay Movement!” is a serious comedy and one-man show that details
an ex “ex-gay” man’s struggle to come to terms with his sexual
orientation and the dangers of “reparative therapy.”
During Peterson Toscano’s performance, which is scheduled to take place
in Washington at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 31, he portrays five characters
who guide audience members on a bittersweet tour of the “Homo No Mo Halfway
House.”
Toscano describes the house as a 12-Step Christian program that “attempts
to save men from the snares of homosexuality through bizarre rules, a masculine
resuscitation regime and brain-numbing reconditioning.”
He recently told the Blade that “drawing on my two-year experience in
such a program, I tell my story and the stories of others who survived the
ex-gay movement and came out queer.”
TOSCANO USES HUMOR, program jargon and personal accounts from characters based
on composites of several personalities and people he met while enrolled in “Love
in Action,” an “ex-gay” residential program in Memphis, Tenn.
Although the piece seems like theater of the absurd, with its peculiar premise,
Toscano promises that 95 percent of what he shares actually took place.
After seeing Toscano’s performance in Philadelphia, Rev. Ruth Hamilton,
co-pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Southwest Washington, said
she asked him to perform it in D.C.
“The show was a huge hit with the 500 or so who saw it in Philadelphia,” she
says. “We laughed hard and there were some lumps in the throat, too.”
Hamilton said Toscano’s performance is inspirational and heartbreaking
because he explores in great detail what it means to find one’s own identity
as a whole and healthy person. It was also an eye-opener for most of the audience,
she said, who had no firsthand knowledge of what occurs during reparative therapy,
which is based on the premise that a person’s same-sex sexual orientation
can become heterosexual with prayer and intense counseling.
“I’ve heard about the ex-gay movement but never really knew the
kinds of strategies they use to try to change who people are,” Hamilton
said. “That itself was enlightening.”
TOSCANO’S PERFORMANCES BLEND creative arts with biblical inspiration
and he often includes his long and complicated journey out of the closet
in his works. They include leading drama workshops and “Bibliodramas,” he
said, as well as interactive educational theater pieces.
Religion also still plays a major role in Toscano’s life, though he
graduated from the Love in Action program in 1999 — but remained gay.
He is now a Quaker and says he harbors no ill will toward church members.
“I am not angry at the conservative church for the ex-gay work they
do. They are not evil; they are misguided,” he says. “They do not
realize the damage they do to others … and to themselves.”
He says there is something in his one-man show for everyone.
“Plenty of entertainment, insight, unbelievable information and even
healing,” he says. “I guess, overall, I want people to leave feeling
good about themselves.”
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