Poem -- Restored to Sanity

Restored to Sanity

by Steven Fales

I watched as the inept one

Got custody and control.

I kept coming back

Watching over her shoulder

To make sure the kids were alright

As I was vilified.

They were not alright.

As my own parents

Maligned and undermined

My proven abilities,

There was nothing I could do

But watch in anguish.

Even when I was high

I was watching and waiting,
Biding my time unbidden.

And when the time came

To stop waiting and do/be/have

I quit binging

And the capable one

Who had always been

Rose to the occasion

And took over.

No custody needed.

That’s when everything finally

Turned out alright

For everyone.
The queer one wasn’t the queerest

And the queen became a king

Unbidden but bidden.

Playwright Note -- Bay Street Theater Program

Note from the Playwright*

As I was being formally tried as a homosexual in the year 2000 by the church of my birth, I found the whole experience so bizarre and fantastical that I thought, “Someone should really write about all this.” About a year later, that’s what I started to do. Confessions of a Mormon Boy was born out of a need to artistically express what was happening to myself and my gay brothers and sisters in the Mormon Church at the Turn of the Millennium. I’m happy to report that excommunication is becoming less and less common, but spiritual abuse and religious violence still persists in all kinds of covert ways. The tactics today may be more subtle, but they are just as insidious. And it’s not just in Mormondom—it’s happening in churches, mosques, and synagogues here in America and all over the world. I wanted to share with others how I survived this psychological and spiritual trauma—and how I’m still surviving it—with the help of a very good psychotherapist!

Another reason I started writing was that I was afraid that if something were to happen to me there was no one I fully trusted to tell my young children who I was and how much I loved them. So, Confessions was born out of a need to leave a record for my children—a valentine if you will—from their dad.

As Confessions developed and I started telling my story I quickly realized I wasn’t alone. I have learned that we all have a story, and it’s all we really have to change the world. We may not all need to tell our story onstage—in fact, that can come with occupational hazards I wouldn’t inflict on anyone! But I believe that each of us will one day have an opportunity to share our story in a way that is powerful, appropriate, meaningful, and deeply personal. You’ll know when that time is and how to do it. It’s as if the storytelling gods touch you on the shoulder and say, “Tag, you’re it!” Maybe it will be to just one other person who needs it. Maybe it will be for your own children. My hope—and prayer—is that my story just helps you get in touch with your own.

I’ve also learned that each of our stories continues. I never intended to write an entire trilogy of solo plays, but life most certainly continued—just as bizarre and fantastical as before. I am honored to get to further develop this project here at Bay Street under the guidance of a masterful director, Scott Schwartz. He has this uncommon ability—a gift—to not only help you unlock your imagination as a writer and performer—igniting your creativity—but he gives you permission to write from the depths of your soul. Just when you thought you’d written it all, after a working session with Scott you find yourself going back to your desk and the tears flow, the laughter builds, the story deepens. I feel incredibly blessed to have Scott helping me tell my story in a way I think it was always meant to be told. Thank you for joining us on this journey as we work toward opening Mormon Boy Trilogy next year off Broadway. 

Keep smiling!

Steven Fales

*From the program at Bay Street Theater, Summer 2018

DUMBO 

by Steven Fales

Dumbo they would poke

Dumbo they would try

Dumbo they would joke

'Til he learned to fly.

Dumbo they made wrong

Dumbo wasn't right

Dumbo got along

Once he learned to fight!

Catapult

CATAPULT

By Steven Fales

There was a wall I could not scale.

You put your two strong hands

Together and said step here.

I did.

You hoisted me high into the air

As if I were a little child and

I landed safely on the other side.

Heels bruised.

I cannot reach up and over to

Thank you enough for my freedom—

For being the catapult to my dreams.

So scared.

But I will go score and achieve

All I was meant to create as I

Weep for loss and missing so much

My dad.

I will return laughing tears of truth

And retrieve you. Wait for me and

Do not worry. Watch and believe in

Helicopter glory . . .

Written Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Steven Fales' Bio -- Comprehensive

Steven Fales is an actor/writer/producer best known for his one-man play Confessions of a Mormon Boy (Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination) originally directed off Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse by the late Jack Hofsiss (Tony Award for The Elephant Man) followed by acclaimed commercial runs at the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles and Charing Cross Theatre in London’s West End. Confessions of a Mormon Boy is now Part One in Mormon Boy Trilogy which includes Missionary Position and Prodigal Dad.

Before embarking on the solo performance chapter of his career, Steven worked as an actor doing Shakespeare, musicals, and American classics in regional theatres across the country. His first union job was playing Hap in Death of a Salesman at New Harmony Theater with Gil Rogers, Jacqueline Brooks, and Apollo Dukakis. He has acted with Elaine Stritch, Len Cariou, Keir Dullea, Jane Alexander, Douglas Sills, and other theatre luminaries in concerts and benefit staged readings of new plays at what was once the Connecticut Stratford Shakespeare Festival Theatre (formerly the American Shakespeare Festival), and where he worked closely with founder and South African theatre impresario and Broadway director/producer Louis Burke (Meet Me in St. Louis).

Other regional theatre credits include leading roles at the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre Company (As You Like It with Ty Burrell and Evita with Janine Lamanna), Sundance Summer Theater (Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof starring Michael Rupert), Tuacahn Center for the Arts, Stages St. Louis, and directing I Hate Hamlet at Provo Theatre Company. Favorite roles at Connecticut Repertory Theatre include Edmund in King Lear, Gerry in Dancing at Luhgnasa, Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, and other CRT productions with Broadway veterans Judy Kaye in You Can’t Take It with You; opposite Emily Loesser’s Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance; with Kirsti Carnahan in She Loves Me (Kodaly); and with Dorothy Stanley and Marcus Neville in Company, among others.

Additional New York credits include the male lead (opposite Eden Espinoza and featuring Will Swenson) in staged readings of a new musical about the beginnings of the Salvation Army in the slums of Victorian London called Blood & Fire at the York Theatre and at ASCAP/Disney for Stephen Schwartz. Other New York credits include the lead in A Pig’s Tale at TOSOS II Theatre Co., staged readings at Abingdon Theatre, playing Young Scrooge in Scrooged Ballet Theatre for Young Audiences, and Frederic in The Tempest at Judith Shakespeare Company.

Las Vegas credits include GRANDmosphere at MGM Grand Adventures, A Caesar’s Christmas on Ice (also at Caesar’s Palace Tahoe), Andy William’s America at the Desert Inn, Paradise Ballroom Dancers, and the lead in ‘TWAS, a Christmas spectacular produced by Daniel Flannery Productions.

Steven’s television credits include Touched by An Angel, Miracles & Other Wonders, and the CBS mini-series Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (about JonBenet Ramsey) starring Marg Helgenberger and Ann-Margaret. He produced a pilot for his cabaret/comedy Esprit de Queer also starring Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan. He has been in films for the LDS Church, numerous industrials, commercials (including the recent national “Visit Utah” commercial as the young dad on the ski slopes), and has done a fair amount of fitness modelling and commercial print work—most recently for Vail Resorts in Park City.

Solo Performance

“A child of the fringe”, Steven has developed and performed his solo work at theatre festivals across the country and internationally including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Spirit of the Fringe Award). Other festivals include the Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax (Overall Fringe Hit Award), Hollywood Fringe, Phoenix Fringe, United Solo Festival in New York, GayFest Philadelphia, and twice each at the New York International Fringe Festival (Overall Excellence Award), the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival (Oscar Wilde Award Nomination for Outstanding New Writing for the Theatre), Acts of Faith Festival in Richmond, as well as multiple times at the annual Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City, the unofficial Mormon International Fringe.

He has toured his storytelling in regional sit-down productions including Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Boston Theatre Works, Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, Bailiwick Theatre in Chicago, Theatre Lab Houston, Richmond Triangle Players, Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles, New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, Buffalo United Artists, 14th Street Playhouse in Atlanta, Rising Action Theatre in Ft. Lauderdale, Onyx Theatre in Las Vegas, Island Repertory Theatre on Fire Island, the Crown & Anchor in Provincetown, Parliament House in Orlando, Invisible Theatre in Tucson, and others including the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City where he first debuted Confessions of a Mormon Boy.

In addition to his Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, Steven recently shared an Artvoice Artie Award for Outstanding Visiting Production with Tovah Feldshuh (Golda’s Balcony). Other recognition includes a Houston Theater Award Finalist, double nomination for Boston IRNE Award (Best Solo Performance and Visiting Production), Stage Scene LA Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, San Francisco Lee Hartgrave Fame Award for Best Solo Performance, and Global Community Hero Award from Youth First Texas (Dallas). The book of the script for Confessions of a Mormon Boy (Alyson Books) was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

In addition to Mormon Boy Trilogy, his other solo shows include Cult Model (Laurie Beechman Theater, Metropolitan Room) and his cabaret Mormon American Princess (Joe’s Pub, The Art House in Provincetown, Upright Cabaret in Los Angeles). Additionally, he has been working on a new cabaret of original songs he wrote called Mormon American Cowboy. Having performed his standup at Caroline’s On Broadway, Standup NY, Don’t Tell Mama, and Wiseguys in Salt Lake, he keeps trying out new material at open mics for a future standup show called When All Else Fales. Steven’s solo dramedy My Mormon Valentine was recently filmed live at the Leonardo Museum in Salt Lake City and is currently in post-production. Other solo offerings in development include Joseph III (an historical solo about son of Mormon founder Joseph Smith), and his drag creation Conversations with Heavenly Mother: An Uncommon Diva.

Passionate about helping develop the solo genre and supporting and mentoring other solo performers, Steven is the founder of the “Solo Performance Alliance” on Facebook that offers resources and encouragement to other “soloistas.” He has taught his workshops on how to create and produce solo work across the country and is a sought-after consultant who has coached many solo artists to festival gold. Steven’s work was featured in The Advocate as one of Ben Rimalower’s top ten gay solo artists that inspired his successful Patti Issues and Bad with Money.

Steven was inspired to do solo work after experiencing the courage and honesty of Margaret Cho’s I’m the One that I Want, Elaine Stritch At Liberty, and the work of Tim Miller. In 2000, Steven met Tim Miller after his show Glory Box in Salt Lake and bought a signed copy of his Shirts and Skins in which Tim inscribed, “Tell your story!” That is what Steven has been doing ever since with audience responses such as this from one of the stage managers of Broadway’s Avenue Q, “Not since David Drake’s The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me have I been so moved by a solo show.” And a Mormon dad falling into Steven’s arms weeping after a show in Boston, “Thank you for helping me understand my gay son, and for dedicating your life to this mission.”

From London to Los Angeles, Houston to Halifax, Steven Fales has performed his solo work in eclectic venues from a church sanctuary in Orange County, California to a BDSM club in Denver; a gay resort in Palm Springs to an historic old movie house in Portland, Oregon; from grungy coffee shops in North Hollywood to the splendid, modern Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center.

Publishing & Other Media

Steven’s companion book to his stage play, Confessions of a Mormon Boy: Behind the Scenes of the Off-Broadway Hit (Alyson Books), was a 2007 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Drama (Tim Miller winning that category for 1,001 Beds). The book includes the longer, unabridged script, essays about the creative process, exhibits that include his excommunication letter, and a foreward by Jack Hofsiss. It has been used in book clubs and university classrooms from University of Lethbredge in Alberta, Canada to the University of Utah. High school students have used its monologues to win competitions across the country. Confessions of a Mormon Boy was recently performed by a student at Crafton Hills Community College in San Bernardino, California as an experiment to see if other actors can successfully play Steven Fales, which many producers have suggested is possible. Permission for the rights to produce the play have been requested from Bangalore, India to Sao Paolo, Brazil but have not yet been granted (though the play has been translated into Portuguese and Spanish in anticipation of things to come).

The storytelling album “Confessions of a Mormon Boy LIVE from London” received five stars from BroadwayWorld.com. Confessions was professionally filmed live off Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse with six HD cameras and in Los Angeles at the Coast Playhouse with eleven cameras. A rough cut is available but has not yet been released (though at one time there was a distribution deal pending with Wolfe Distribution for global VOD release, including Hulu, etc.). This footage will be part of the documentary film Mormon Boy: The Story of a Storyteller that also includes footage from the upcoming “revival” of Mormon Boy Trilogy.

The original “Utah” version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy was published in Sunstone Magazine: Journal of Mormon Experience, Scholarship, Issues, and Art. His work has been anthologized in the book Latter Gay Saints: An Anthology of Gay Mormon Fiction (Fawn Brody Award). As part of his first blog, Mormon Boy, he wrote a monthly advice column for over a year called “Ask Mormon Boy” which was published in The Pillar, Utah’s first LGBT publication. He is a featured artist in the book Wilde Stages in Dublin: A Decade of Gay Theatre as well as The Creative Life: True Stories of Inspiration by Julia Cameron of the international bestselling The Artist’s Way. His new blog is called When All Else Fales.

Books and projects in various stages of development include Oxy-Mormon Memoirs: The Journey of an Off-Broadway Dad, a book in five volumes that fully expands his Mormon Boy Trilogy leaving room for future volumes in the series. His Mormon Boy Cookbook (based on his idea for a cooking show), Cultaholic (based on his solo show Cult Model), and My Mormon Valentine (based on the film now in post-production). Steven has also written a children’s book called The Valentine Maker and a book of poetry, Pressed Luck. He has a book of humor called Overheard at the Rodeo and a photography book called My Utah. He has several plays he is working on including Sacred Strain (about the early days of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Oscar Wilde’s visit to Salt Lake City) and musicals including Saltair, centered around the grand resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake that rivaled Coney Island’s rollercoaster and dance floors in the 1920s.

Before his excommunication, Steven taught middle school drama courses at the prestigious Waterford School in Salt Lake City where he directed Kate & Co., his original adaptation of the medieval morality play, Everyman.

Carol Lynn Pearson

Steven Fales’s former mother-in-law is celebrated poet/playwright and early Mormon propaganda writer Carol Lynn Pearson of the bestselling feminist memoir, Good-bye, I Love You (Random House, 1986) about bringing her ex-husband home to die of AIDS in San Francisco in 1984. Steven was once married to their daughter, actor/writer Emily Pearson. He is featured in Carol Lynn’s book, No More Good-byes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones. Steven was instrumental in getting her play about the gay Mormon suicide epidemic, Facing East, produced—from early reading to a short off-Broadway run to subsequent regional productions. Carol Lynn has sought out his advice on many of her projects from her fable series that includes The Lesson and A Strong Man to producing her one-woman play Mother Wove the Morning. Steven has performed in her popular Mormon children’s musical My Turn On Earth and helped re-write her early Mormon musical The Order is Love which he directed and workshopped for Mountain West Repertory Theatre at the Hale Center Theatre in Orem, Utah. Steven commissioned her oil portrait by internationally acclaimed gay Mormon South African artist Trevor Southey called “Prophetess” before the artist died of cancer. Steven is featured in his ex-wife’s memoir Dancing with Crazy about leaving Mormonism, and a book she co-wrote with her mother, Fuzzy Red Bathrobe. He has purchased signed depiction releases from Carol Lynn, Emily, and his two children to mention them in his work.

Activism and Charity Work

Steven was asked to speak and perform for the oldest Gay/Straight Alliance in the country at the Phillips Academy Andover (which also includes Exeter and the Groton School). He and others were nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for an episode on the Tyra Banks Show called “Not In to Be Out” about his experiences surviving “reparative” (conversion) therapy and the ex-gay movement, and was featured in the documentary film Lost Tribe about Australian comic and Mormon lesbian, Sue-Ann Post. Steven was a Broadway Impact bus captain for the Marriage Equality March on Washington, DC in 2009, and in 2011, he posed nearly naked in the “Naked Issue” for Gay Times Magazine (London) raising money for HIV/AIDS and the Elton John Foundation. In the 2000s, Steven was instrumental in bringing the first gay-specific crystal meth recovery programs to the Utah Pride Center. He has volunteered to help pass legislation sponsored by Equality Utah and helped work phones and went door to door to help elect Salt Lake’s first openly gay mayor, Jackie Biskupski in 2016.

In 2005, The Point Foundation produced Confessions of a Mormon Boy at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center as part of its first gala benefit fundraiser. That star-studded event raised more than half a million dollars.  Other groups Steven has raised funds for with his work include the Trevor Project, Equality California, the Fellowship at St. Bart’s Episcopal, Basic Rights Oregon, Desert AIDS Project, Utah AIDS Foundation, People with AIDS Coalition of Utah, Affirmation (LGBT Mormons), Gamofites (Gay Mormon Fathers), Utah Dads Legal Fund, Straight Spouse Network, SAGE New York, Soulforce, Golden Rainbow (Las Vegas), Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Actors Fund, Utah Pride Center, Straight Spouse Network, Metropolitan Community Church (Los Angeles), Cathedral of Hope (Dallas), The Fathers Rights Movement, National Organization for Women, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Youth First Texas (Dallas), Church of the Foothills (Orange County), QSAC, Ability First, Frontrunners (San Diego), and Steven’s own Possibility Foundation, that gives scholarships to survivors of human trafficking and those transitioning out of the sex industry. Steven has guest-lectured and performed at Hunter College, University of Maine, Farmington, University of Connecticut, and the American Comedy Institute.

Education & Training

While in high school in Las Vegas, Steven attended summer programs at the Idylwild School of Music and the Arts in Southern California where he played Tony in West Side Story (with Rain Pryor as Anita).  His senior year he was named Nevada All-State Best Male Vocalist. He then attended the Boston Conservatory on scholarship with fellow freshmen Jennifer Simard (Disaster) and Victoria Lynn Palazola (Always, Patsy Cline).

After serving for two years as a Mormon missionary in Portugal, he transferred to Brigham Young University where he earned his BFA in music/dance/theatre and was a member of the international touring group, the Young Ambassadors. Steven was awarded the Outstanding Musical Theatre Student Award and, in addition to leading roles in mainstage musicals including Joe in The Most Happy Fella, was in an original play Prisoner that went to the Kennedy Center for the American College Theatre Festival. Contemporaries at BYU included Will Swenson, Jeff Award Winner Kymberly Mellon, Aaron Eckhart, and playwright Neil LaBute. His senior project was playing Chris in Miss Saigon.

After graduating from BYU, Steven spent a semester in a new graduate musical theatre program at UNLV before deciding to focus exclusively on classical acting. He earned his MFA at the University of Connecticut where he received the Nafe Katter/Ron Palillo Best Actor Award. Steven has since studied at the American Comedy Institute and privately and in group classes with master acting coach and teacher Larry Moss.

Steven has attended many personal growth seminars of various kinds and is a graduate of the “Curriculum for Living” at Landmark Education.

Personal

Steven Fales was born the oldest of six children in Provo, Utah while his father was attending Brigham Young University. Steven attended elementary school in California while his dad attended medical school at USC. When he was eleven the family moved to Las Vegas where his mother’s side of the family is from. When he was sixteen his parents divorced. This set him free to pursue the performing arts full-time and he has never looked back. Steven was a member of the high school honor society, went to Nevada Boys’ State, and was an LDS seminary graduate. He served a full-time mission for the LDS Church in Portugal and is a proud Eagle Scout.

A sixth-generation “Son of the Utah Pioneers” formally excommunicated from the LDS Church for the practice of homosexuality, he has two grown children from a previous marriage to actor/writer/producer Emily Pearson, daughter of celebrated Mormon poet/playwright Carol Lynn Pearson. He is the step-grandson of controversial Mormon General Authority Emeritus, Hartman Rector, Jr., and his father is a retired Mormon bishop. Steven currently attends St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral Church and writes about Mormon Americana from his writing studio overlooking the Rocky Mountains, exporting his work from the heart and soul of Mormondom—Salt Lake City, “the Crossroads of the West.”

Steven can be reached directly at fales.steven@gmail.com, Twitter @mormonboy, Instagram @stevenfalesonline, Facebook @fales.steven, 

Mormon Boy Trilogy Play Descriptions

In his new MORMON BOY TRILOGY, internationally acclaimed actor/playwright Steven Fales (Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination; Overall Excellence Award; Lambda Literary Award Finalist) has created a solo symphony with three self-contained autobiographical one-person plays in repertory. An insider’s insider often straddling opposing worlds, Steven Fales takes audiences on a rollercoaster ride through an Oxy-Mormon life of harrowing events, extravagant personalities, unbelievable obstacles, and hilarious and heart-warming lessons, showing us what it takes to become profoundly human and recover from almost anything—including one's self.

Now incorporating projections with masterful storytelling, all three solo shows together pull out all the emotional and comedic stops, and help define what it was (and is) to be a gay American, father, and human being at the turn of the millennium. A unique theatrical solo performance event, Mormon Boy Trilogy includes Confessions of a Mormon Boy, Missionary Position, and Prodigal Dad. Each play is approximately 90-minutes without intermission and “is self-contained, they do not have to be seen together.”—Washington Post

CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON BOY

A true story of extremes—from perfect model Mormon in Utah to perfect rent boy in Manhattan—outcast Steven Fales ultimately finds a middle ground and learns what it means to finally come home. After conversion therapy, excommunication, divorce, prostitution and drugs, an exiled sixth-generation Latter-gay Saint reclaims his kids and Donny Osmond smile. This extraordinary, life-affirming journey to heck and back is told with humor, song, and The Book of Mormon. Originally directed off Broadway by Jack Hofsiss. “Breathtaking.”—San Diego Union-Tribune; “Honest, moving, whimsical, sobering, tender and cathartic.”—Miami Herald; “Compelling confessional theatre. Fales knows how to sell it.”—NY Times; “Sexy and harrowing. A play that transcends religion, gender, and sexuality. Fales is one hell of a writer.”—SF Examiner; “Riveting. The stuff of great theatre.”—Associated Press; “Brilliantly acted and beautifully written.”—Irish Daily Mail; “Five Stars”—GTimes London; “A triumph."--Newsday

MISSIONARY POSITION

This raucous, poignant prequel to Confessions of a Mormon Boy—based on Steven Fales’s journals from his LDS mission to Portugal—is a coming-of-age tale that takes audiences on an exuberant solo adventure behind the Mormon Machine’s global religious colonization, including the secret cult rites of the temple ceremony never-before-seen onstage. This “mission statement” tenderly sets the stage for Fales’s fall from grace in Confessions while verging on high camp with outrageous fantasy sequences as Elder Fales wrangles with Portuguese Conquistadors, Porn Czars, Mormon Oompa-Loompas, and finally his perky, pious nineteen-year-old self out to re-convert him. What happens in a mission, stays in a mission—until now. “Plenty of seduction. Asks an important question: What is the true care of soul?”—LA Times; “Theatrical genius.”—Houston Chronicle; “Hilarious and powerful.”—BroadwayWorld.com; “A laugh riot.”—NYTheatre.com.

PRODIGAL DAD

The sequel to Confessions, a penniless non-custodial dad returns home to Utah at the height of the Great Recession only to find himself fighting for his life and rights as a father in this compelling family courtroom drama. As he looks to answers from his lost Greco-Mormon heritage, he comes face to face with his own demons and conjures his greatest nemesis, shattering myths and family secrets in an underworld where bipolar ghosts and mortals collide. Will this prodigal ever receive the father’s blessing he craves? Greek and biblical in its themes, all is redeemed and the “sins of the fathers” forgiven by the end of this often dark, powerful, and surprisingly humorous solo dramedy. “Moving and suspenseful and just as funny.”—Washington Post; “His legal battle to retain his rights as a father is a human rights issue, not a gay issue, and struck a chord with many in the audience.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch; “Sheer theatrical brilliance.”—BroadwayWorld.com/Houston; “Emotionally gripping.”—GayRVA.com.

Mormon Boy Video Clips

Here are a few clips to give you a feel for what we did off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse in 2006:

1. "Crystal Meth Meltdown" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2v1aeTa-0

2. NY1 "On Stage" interview with Patrick Pacheco with b-roll clips of the solo play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK5_OivCRvw&t=49s

3. "That's Kentertainment" documents Opening Night at the SoHo Playhouse. It features quite a young, eager "me" and rare interviews with director Jack Hofsiss and my father. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60hbvqmTswk

4. "Hollywood Extra" when I was doing the show in L.A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bdLE8JR3Cg

5. "Tyra Banks" taking on Reparative Therapy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-J5T6wsnEQ

Mormon Boy Trilogy Reviews and Feature Articles

MORMON BOY TRILOGY

Washington Post (Review)

Richmond Times-Dispatch (Review)

Richmond Times-Dispatch (Feature) 

Richmond Style Weekly (Feature)


PRODIGAL DAD

BroadwayWorld.com/Houston (Review)

BroadwayWorld.com/Houston (Feature)


MISSIONARY POSITION

Houston Chronicle (Review) 

BroadwayWorld.com/Houston (Review)

Houston Press (Review)

BroadwayWorld.com/Houston (Feature)

Los Angeles Times (Review)

TimeOut New York (Fringe Review)

Las Vegas Review-Journal (Review)

Stage Scene LA (Review)



CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON BOY

Village Voice (Review)

Halifax Chronicle Herald (Review)

Las Vegas Review-Journal (Review)

New York Magazine (Review)

Newsday (Review)

Variety (Review)

Los Angeles Times (Critics Choice Review)

LA Weekly (Review)

Chicago Tribune (Review by Chris Jones)

Houston Chronicle (Review)

Houston Press (Review)

Boston Globe (Review)

Boston Globe (Feature)

BroadwayWorld.com (Live from London Album Review)

Salt Lake Tribune (Review)

San Diego Union-Tribune (Review)

New York Daily News (Review)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Review)

New York Times (Review)

Austin Chronicle (Review)

Richmond Times-Dispatch (Review)

Denver Next Ooze (Review)

San Francisco Beyond Chron (Review)





STEVEN FALES

Huffington Post Feature

Fatherless Day

"Fatherless Day"
By Steven Fales

Do you hear those drums?
We are marching—be afraid!
We bear no arms or ill will
But we are advancing—closing in.
Coming with drums to reclaim
Our children stolen by those with
Fairer eyes and whiter skin,
Deaf and dumb to passion or reason—
Feigning "civilization".

With coffee-black eyes, olive skin,
And ageless patriarchal wisdom
Born of world-weary experience
(Not mere homebody philosophy)
I come with the ghosts of my fathers
To restore what was lost
And balance the broken, ancient scale.

Thankless once but in glory now
We sweat and beat out our return
As our half-breeds come running
To their papas' pure and iron hearts
And vascular arms both sure and strong.
There is no Bronze Age anymore
Yet hear our terrible Greco roar.


I wrote this poem in honor of The Fathers' Rights Rally taking place (appropriately) this Sunday, Father's Day in Washington, D.C. They have called it the "Fatherless Day Rally". I wish I could be there as advocating for the rights of fathers (and all prodigal parents) is one of my great passions and the reason I wrote my solo play Prodigal Dad. If there was ever a cause to support, bringing father's home is what can heal our world. Look into the National Parent Organization https://nationalparentsorganization.org/ or check out The Fathers' Rights Movement on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fathers4kids.

Queen Lear

Queen Lear

by Steven Fales

I cannot be bothered and will no longer tolerate

Mom’s chaotic household nor her court of crazy siblings.

Now on the other side of a surprising sixty-five

Time’s up; time out; it’s time to conform.

Everything must go—just sell it!

She must take her place under her children’s roof

For they must needs serve their needy children.

Dear Mother Dragonfly Butterfly neglected her own—

Used and abused time and time again

Stealing and sucking everyone’s thunder nectar.

So let her stay on as a humble guest ‘til her rest

Or she can go end up like royal Queen Lear.

And let it be written so it will be clear

I swear I will no longer play her fool.

Second childishness cannot rule. 

Edge of Enoch

I've been lucky enough to work from my dad's little hobby ranch in Enoch, UT the last couple of weeks. Here's a poem I wrote while staying here. The irony is that I will be leaving soon. Grateful for the reprieve from the fast-paced, relentless world. The countryside gives one perspective.

EDGE OF ENOCH

By Steven Fales 

My father lives in a small green tin-roofed log cabin

But there are many mansions within his evergreen heart:

Six estates exist for his original bless-ed six

With realms for each of their children’s children;

Generous tracts of land are also laid aside

Subdivided for steps and cousins of his unruly tribe;

Because three fair kingdoms were once established

As each templed wife begat a trilogy of three-ring adventures

Requiring voracious acreage and limitless water rights.

There are no known hidden closets for chamber maidens—

Only high granite walls built to unwelcome those who threaten

To ding and destroy the paternal patina of his homemade steeples.

His parents, long gone to their reward, left all vast acquisitions

To him, their oldest son, and his no lesser brother and sister

So looking ahead and looking back are forever non-linear

Furrowed spacious fields of saplings of love in every direction.

The four elements cannot contain the eternal heartland where

Fifth-dimensional ether forbids borders and fences of place and time

Insisting an “all inclusive resort” be the new family proclamation when

Finally taking dad on that proper damn Kolob sublimation vacation.

As for me I have only three stalls in my mortal mon coeur.

Room just enough for my now grown daughter and son.

Love passed me by so many times I accept my (p)lot

As I dwell at the end of the road on the edge of Enoch and Equinox

In a comfy stable near my father’s house down One Heart Ranch Lane

Content to be me in an infinite thatched-roof hovel of mine own

At the iron crossroads of Alpha and Omega’s vast sacred coracion. 

(Note. Enoch equals eternity. Equinox equals equestrian. Ether equals quintessence.)

CULT MODEL Photos

Last October I workshopped a new cabaret act called CULT MODEL at the Laurie Beechman Theater in New York City. There is the possibility that I will get to do this fun new show at the Hollywood Fringe Festival June 2016. We shall see! Publicity photos by David Daniels of dav.d photography and Matt Spencer and title treatment by Scott Nicholson.

My Mormon Valentine Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact: Daisy Blake Perry (801) 604-7845

daisyvalentineblake@hotmail.com

Solo Salt Lake presents

Steven Fales’ one-man comedy

MY MORMON VALENTINE

The Original Utah Version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy

(featuring Heavenly Mother and Jimmy Flinders in the Pre-Existence

and St. Peter in the Celestial Kingdom)

Feb.  11 — March 5

at The Leonardo

“Fales knows how to sell it.”—New York Times

 “A fine actor and writer.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“A masterful storyteller and one hell of a writer.”—San Francisco Examiner

“Steven Fales is easily among the best, if not the best, solo performers in the business."

—BroadwayWorld.com

Solo Salt Lake is proud to present internationally acclaimed solo performance artist Steven Fales in the return of his solo comedy MY MORMON VALENTINE: The Original Utah Version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy (which hasn’t been performed in fifteen years) Feb. 11 – March 5  with show times at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the 200-seat Leonardo Museum Theater located at 209 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City 84111 (next to the Downtown Salt Lake Library). Tickets start at $10 with discounts and group rates available online at http://mormonboylive.brownpapertickets.com or 1-800-838-3006 and at the door. More information at facebook.com/mormonboylive; Twitter @mormonboy; and Instagram @stevenfalesonline.

Please note the special performance benefiting the Utah Pride Center Sat., Feb. 20 @7 p.m.

Thurs., Feb. 11 @7 p.m. PREVIEW ($10)

Fri., Feb. 12 @7 p.m. OPENING NIGHT (reception to follow)

Sat., Feb. 13 @7 p.m. Sun., Feb. 14 @3 p.m. VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL (2-for-1 “Bring your Mormon Boy” discount)

Sat., Feb. 20 @7 p.m. BENEFIT Utah Pride Center (VIP $50 w/catered reception)

Sat., Feb. 27 @3 & 7 FILMING (Bring your ticket stub to get in for free to both shows)

Mon., Mar 1 @7 p.m. FAMILY NIGHT w/talk back afterward (Pay-what-you-can-but-please-pay-    something)

Sat., March 5 @7 p.m. CLOSING NIGHT

IndieGoGo crowd-funding campaign for filming will begin Feb 15^th.

Steven Fales’ original solo “comic valentine” to Mormonism and his kids, MY MORMON VALENTINE: The Original Utah Versions of Confessions of a Mormon Boy is peppered with all kinds of delicious Utah/Mormon in-humor and takes place somewhere in Mormon Eternity after Judgment Day. Dressed in a telestial holocaust pinstriped jailbird jumpsuit with a pink triangle on his back, Fales escapes from Mormon Outer Darkness to find himself trying to get St. Peter (the token Catholic in Mormon Heaven) to let pass through the Pearly Gates. When his name isn’t on the list for Heavenly Mother’s Celestial Tea Party all heck breaks loose. Will Steven make it into the Celestial Kingdom to see his kids? Will he ever get to marry “Jimmy Flinders”? Who else does he find waiting for him on the other side of the Celestial Red Carpet?

My Mormon Valentine: The Original Utah Version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy first started as a stand-up routine at Caroline's on Broadway and then a reading at the 2001 Sunstone Symposium simply titled Confessions of a Mormon Boy. The world premiere was at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center over Thanksgiving Weekend 2001. It has never been performed since. Recently dusted off, it has now been re-titled My Mormon Valentine to distinguish it from his wildly successful off-Broadway version Confessions of a Mormon Boy now titled XXX’d.

To read an excerpt from My Mormon Valentine go to Steven’s blog When All Else Fales : http://stevenfales.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-pre-existence-from-my-mormon.html

For more press photos: http://stevenfales.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-mormon-valentine-press-photos.html

More about MY MORMON VALENTINE: The Original Utah Version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy

Now re-titled, updated and improved, MY MORMON VALENTINE was originally written within a year of his divorce and excommunication from the LDS Church Summer 2000. The original Sunstone/Utah version of what was simply called Confessions of a Mormon Boy began as standup routine at Caroline’s on Broadway and then a reading at the Sunstone Symposium Aug. 2001 with ex-wife Emily Pearson leading the standing ovation. That Sunstone version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy (now titled MY MORMON VALENTINE to distinguish itself from the later off-Broadway version) went on to have its world premiere at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center Black Box Theatre Nov. 2001 where it became a local sold-out sensation with an extra performance added due to local counter-culture support  and the unofficial endorsement of Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons. It was published in Sunstone Magazine under Dan Witherspoon (Dec. 2003). Now updated and performed for the first time in 15 years this Sunstone/Utah version is still “PG-13” with no swearing or nudity.

This run will transfer to Off The Cuff Theater in Cedar City, Utah later this summer coinciding with the Utah Shakespeare Festival in which Steven Fales once starred in The Boy Friend and other productions.

“This was my first attempt to help end spiritual abuse and religious violence in our churches, mosques and synagogues,” said Fales. “I was astonished at the emails of support that poured in during and after the run. I seemed to be onto something as I struck a universal chord so I kept going. There was this real need to talk about these themes in the play.”

The Salt Lake Tribune called that Sunstone/Utah version “Wistfully comic . . . a compelling play. It feels like a sequel to Good-bye, I Love You (Carol Lynn Pearson’s bestselling memoir) from the husband’s perspective and a generation removed. An enormous achievement, the way he performs his Confessions proves to be a therapeutic and unflinchingly honest experience.”

Ivan Lincoln of the Deseret News declining to review this or subsequent versions of the play citing ecclesiastical and personal reasons shared in an email to the playwright.

Fales explains his reasoning behind bringing this version back. “This valley and the Utah Gay Establishment is getting too self-significant and is wallowing in a dangerous cycle of victim mentality. The antidote is humor! I’ll be transforming the Leonardo Theater into the Celestial Kingdom as I turn Mormon Eternity upside down and serve it back with all the generosity-of-spirit an excommunicated Latter-day Saint can muster.  Do we really believe eternity could possibly look like this? I like to say I may no longer be a Latter-day Saint but something about me will always be Mormon. That starts with good old-fashioned hokey Mormon humor! This will always be my favorite version and I feel like Salt Lake City, the epicenter of Mormondom, needs this more campier, wholesome version now more than ever. I know I sure-as-heck do!” Steven recently relocated to Utah to base his personal life where his two children are in college and to export his “Oxy-Mormon” work from Salt Lake City.

That old Sunstone/Utah version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy later underwent significant re-writes for “gentile” audiences when he took it back to New York and eliminated all the Utah in-humor—including Heavenly Mother and the Pre-existence. That version, directed by Tony Award Winner Jack Hofsiss (The Elephant Man) became more R-rated due to the serious grittier urban content that was added: drug experimentation and human trafficking. It went on to be developed for a 10-week run at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami in 2003 and became a break-out hit of the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival (Overall Excellence Award) before its official landmark commercial off-Broadway run at the SoHo Playhouse 2006 (Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination) opening the door for future shows about Mormonism and including The Book of Mormon on Broadway (consider South Park’s similar marketing and themes).

Confessions of a Mormon Boy (off-Broadway version) has toured extensively across the country and internationally including the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival (Oscar Wilde Award Nomination), Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax (Overall Fringe Hit Award); Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a month-long engagement at the Charing Cross Theater in London’s West End with John Leguizamo's Ghetto Klown following Fales' run.

Confessions of a Mormon Boy is perhaps the most successful non-celebrity driven autobiographical solo play to ever premiere in Utah—having grossed over one million dollars at the small theater box office while garnering awards and critical acclaim from major national newspapers from the Associated Press, “the stuff of great theatre” to Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune, “uncommonly powerful” (Critic’s Choice) to Louise Kennedy of the Boston Globe , “feels like a sacred gift” (Critic’s Choice) to Frank Rizzo of Variety, “Brokeback Mormon” to the late Howard Kissel of the NY Daily News, “Fales is such a perceptive writer”. Last spring he had his fourth run in Los Angeles at the Zephyr Theatre , “The best of the solo genre.”--LA Times (Critic’s Choice) and most recently performed at the Interfaith Peace Chapel at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas Nov 2015.

Steven Fales’ first book Confessions of a Mormon Boy: Behind the Scenes of the Off-Broadway Hit (Alyson, 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. It is available on Amazon.com as is his storytelling album “Confessions of a Mormon Boy (Live from London)” (5-stars BroadwayWorld.com) also on iTunes. Steven is featured in the book The Creative Life by Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way), anthologized in Latter Gay Saints, and wrote a monthly advice column “Ask Mormon Boy” for The Pillar. His blog is called When All Else Fales. Steven is currently shopping his children’s book The Valentine Maker and finishing his second book Oxy-Mormon Memoirs which is based on his Mormon Boy Trilogy: Confessions of a Mormon Boy, Missionary Position, and Prodigal Dad to be published in 2017.

Fales recently performed all three solo plays in Mormon Boy Trilogy in repertory at Richmond Triangle Players for the Acts of Faith Festival where the Washington Post called his work, “Powerful. Moving. Funny. A rare artistic commodity: a stand-up-infused  autobiographical epic containing chapter after chapter of absorbing spiritual and personal crisis, sly cultural commentary and humor.” Mormon Boy Trilogy is in development for an off-Broadway run Spring 2017.

The new title for the off-Broadway version of Confessions is called XXX’d: The Off-Broadway Version of Confessions of a Mormon Boy as in X’communicated; X’wife; X’rated (human trafficking).

Other work includes his cabaret act Mormon American Princess (Joe’s Pub, NYC; Metropolitan Room,NYC; Don’t Tell Mama, NYC; Upright Cabaret LA) and last October he premiered his second cabaret Cult Model at the Laurie Beechman Theater in NYC. Upcoming work includes his solos Conversations with Heavenly Mother: An Uncommon Diva and Joseph III; a stand-up show When All Else Fales; a play Sacred Strain; and a musical Saltair.

More about Solo Salt Lake: Solo Salt Lake is a new theater company bringing the best of local, national and international solo performance to the Mountain West. Steven Fales says, “I have so many solo colleagues that have never played Salt Lake. I not only need a home to develop my own work but a venue to bring in amazing artists with voices that Salt Lake needs to experience and celebrate.” Steven Fales produced Jeff Keys’ Eyes of Babylon at the Rose Wagner  Performing Arts Center as well as Carol Lynn Pearon’s Mother Wove the Morning in Las Vegas. He has coached many storytellers to fringe festival gold with his solo performance workshops. Fales is the founder of the Facebook group Solo Performance Alliance.

More about Steven Fales: Actor/writer/director/producer Steven Fales is a member of Actors Equity Association and has performed in New York and regional theatre across the country and in television and film. His first union job was playing Hap in Death of a Salesman at New Harmony Theatre in Indiana. He was the dad in the national “Ski Utah” commercial 2012-2014. Locally he has worked at Utah Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre Co., Sundance Summer Theatre, Tuacahn Amphitheatre and has developed his solo work at the Tavernacle, Wiseguys and the ComplexSLC. He has directed at Provo Theatre Company and taught drama at the Waterford School where he directed his adaptation of Everyman.

Steven is a public speaker and has spoken for groups ranging from Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons to Gamofites (Gay Mormon Fathers) to the Gay/Straight Alliance at the Phillips Academy Andover/Exeter. He has guest lectured at Hunter College in New York City and at the University of Maine. He has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity with his work including a star-studded benefit for the Point Foundation at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center. He shared his experiences of surviving Reparative Therapy on the Tyra Banks Show in which the episode “When It’s Not In to be Out” was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award.

Steven was born in Provo, Utah and is the oldest of six children. When he was one his family moved to Los Angeles where his father attended medical school at USC. Steven was raised in Northern California and later Las Vegas where he went to junior high and high school. Steven attended the Boston Conservatory on scholarship before serving an LDS mission to Portugal. He received his BFA in musical theatre at Brigham Young University where he was a Young Ambassador. He received his MFA in classical acting from the University of Connecticut and has attended the American Comedy Institute and studied privately with legendary acting coach Larry Moss.

Fales is the former son-in-law of celebrated Mormon poet/playwright Carol Lynn Pearson (My Turn on Earth, Facing East, No More Good-byes) and commissioned her portrait from the late gay Mormon artist Trevor Southey. Steven Fales has two children with her daughter actor/writer/producer Emily Pearson (8: The Mormon Proposition; Dancing with Crazy).  Steven’s step grandfather is LDS General Authority emeritus Hartman Rector, Jr. and step uncle was Daniel Rector, former editor of Sunstone Magazine. His father is currently an LDS bishop in Las Vegas where Steven grew up and with whom he now has a very close relationship. They spend weekends doing projects together at his father's hobby ranch in Enoch, Utah.

Steven is an activist for HIV/AIDS and an advocate for the Father’s Rights Movement and the National Parent Organization. He is in the process of founding the Possibility Foundation that helps prevent human trafficking in the LGBT Community and assist survivors of the sex industry according to recent articles about him in the Huffington Post and OUT.com.

Steven purchased signed depiction releases to mention Carol Lynn and Emily Pearson and his children in this play and all his work.

Celebrity Endorsements for Steven Fales’ Off-Broadway Version

Judith Light: “Steven’s one-man show is a combination of an incredibly emotional and heart-wrenching story, a powerfully written and nuanced script, and a knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark performance. Confronting the ‘demons’ within, and seemingly around him, and ending up such an inspiring example of true self-respect and authenticity left me deeply touched and equally inspired.”

Bruce Vilanch: “My only regret is that I came so late to this experience. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful—the best gay coming-of-age, grappling-with-being piece I’ve seen since Dan Butler’s and you know there have been a thousand of them ever since his. It’s really good. This needs to be filmed.”

Lucie Arnaz: “When one can be so moved as to laugh till your jaw hurts, wince with the sorry recognition at the pain distorted religion can inflict, cheer with unashamed abandon at an enviable and inspiring bravery so rarely expressed in the face of certain banishment and ridicule, you know you have had a thrilling and emotionally fulfilling theatrical experience. Bravo, Steven Fales and his Mormon Boy!”