Original subtitles

(slow tempo piano music)

(light guitar music)

(indistinct chatter)

Voiceover: Coming up, an unusual take on the story

of Jesus Christ and why some claim it is a play

that’s gone too far.

Man in black: No, lets take it up to the stage and then...

Newsman: Residents say they are furious that a local

university will put on a play depicting a gay Jesus Christ.

(laughter)

Voiceover: It’s a little too much for residents of

the [Cowboy Cat] but of who are protesting the saturday

performance, saying theirs too much passion in this Christ.

Woman with cross: It’s just my cross to bear. Oh God.

(chuckle)

Jimmy: Some theater news for your guys, in May there’s

a new play premiering in Texas about a gay Jesus.

I don’t know if the play is going to be good or bad

but I do know everything will go really smoothly

and no one will have a problem with it.

That’s what I know for a fact.

Woman in purple: That’s a great idea.

Man with sign: You’re calling yourselves a Christian...

(multiple voices)

Man with glasses: This play, depicting Jesus Christ

as a homosexual, is blasphemy.

Terrence: I was always thought Corpus Christi was a great title.

I thought, one day I’m going to write a play about

Corpus Christi, but I didn’t know what it was

going to be about yet.

I can’t say what inspired the play, other than

a lot of feeling I have about, how religions have sort

of drummed gays out of the churches and we have a spiritual

side too, we’re not just in a chat rooms and hooking up

and promiscuity and aids and all those things.

The story of Christ, I was sort of rethinking about it,

it seemed very, I just wanted to tell it again and

I wanted to tell it in terms that made it accessible

and understandable and realer to me and not something

in a Sunday school book.

Quite honestly, one of the inspirations for the

play was a Gap ad.

A lot of cute young guys in their white t-shirts

and khakis, barefoot and I said,

that’s what they should look like.

I think about it, the white t-shirt and the khakis

is what I had to wear at Catholic school.

That’s how, seemed the right image to do with it

but in a funny way it did not unlock the play

and I think this production, with it’s non traditional

casting, really unlocked what the play is about, in a way.

If I’m writing a play to show that I’m as made in

Gods image as the next person and this casting says

we all are men, women, young, old, very many different

colors, are also made in Gods image.

That is so much more universal than what we put

on the stage, what the uproar the play cause here.

Surely no theater would be willing to go through that again.

It’s really a play that I thought was probably going to vanish.

(multiple voice speaking)

Bob: Theater comes out of ritual and that’s an

important sort of correlation that I studied in

the history of religion.

There’s a story being told, ritually, about creation and so on.

That’s where first theater started to develop.

Nic: Reverend Bob had this mission himself, about

getting theater back into this particular church.

He asked me if I’d like to do something and I said,

you know I had an experience with the play, Corpus Christi,

that I think it would be a really intriguing show

to put up at this church.

I wanted to combine the idea of theater and church

and ritual and religion and remember my alter boy days.

And remember those very sacred moments in a service

that I could connect with the stage.

Woman in white shirt: Blessed are the meek,

they should, blah, blah, blah.

Nic: I knew the ensemble was key and so the first thing

I did was decide how I’m going to cast it.

Sheilagh: Nic had sent out an email to his

seventy five closest friends, he really does have

seventy five really close friends.

Molly: I have been friends with Nic for a while and

he directed me in a comedy and it was just so much fun.

Elizabeth: And then I was like, but wait a minute

this is Corpus Christi, they’re all men.

Bob: And, Nic Arnzen brought a great deal of creativity

to the play and included males and females and

not the transgender Jesus I wanted but, a honky Jesus.

James: My honest first impression was, what am I doing?

I’m at this weird little church in the ghetto

about to pick up a script, do for free.

Molly: And at first I was kind of like, okay it’s a

Jesus play in a church, eww-ugh.

David: I remember saying to somebody, God I really want

to be in somebody else’s play.

I want to say somebody else’s words.

Two days later, do you wanna do Corpus Christi?

Well, I don’t know what the play is but it’s

Terrence McNally and I asked for it, so yea.

Jan: I was helping out here with a luncheon and I

saw the audition and when I went for the audition

Nic said to me, he said, "could you say, fuck you?"

and I said, fuck you! (laughs) and he said,

" you got the part." (laughs)

Elizabeth: And he gave me all these really male parts

and I’m like, I don’t, how’s this going to work?

And I was very much the doubting, doubting Thomas.

Sheilagh: I wanted Liz’s part because I wanted to say,

something really sick about it but I really wanted

to be able to say, Jesus is a cock sucker and if

the son of God is a cock sucker, I don’t think so.

Like I thought it was the coolest fucking line ever

written in the history of ever and I was like,

fuck I want that line, you know?

Steve: I had worked with Molly O’Leary and thought she

was the funniest person I’d ever met and I was

so excited to reconnect with Molly and see she

had been cast in it.

I had worked with Liz Cava before, so there were

people that I was familiar with and I knew

we were going to have a good time.

So I was thrilled to be apart of it, even though

I didn’t think it was a very good play.

David: And I didn’t know the stories of Christianity.

I didn’t know the story of Jesus Christ.

So you know, there’s all the stuff with the fish

and the this and the that and I’m like, I don’t

know what the fuck any of this is.

So I had to go look it up.

Elizabeth: For me, I knew all the Catholic, the bible stories.

I knew every single word written in there.

Sheilagh: There’s things moving and Roman people

and Jesus does what? And, oh God.

James: It felt very religious to me actually and it

was bringing up a lot of Catholicism issues that I have,

so I was like, what am I doing?

What is going on with my life?

I just was like, ugh.

Jan: It was a weird show.

Steve: And then when I heard it’s going to be simple staging

we’re just going to use a couple of benches and

we’re doing it at this church and I thought,

oh okay I don’t have to invite any friends or anything.

Sheilagh: This bench has got to go here, this bench

has got to go there, mix around

(frustration grunts)

Fuck, with the benches, right?

What the hell is wrong with this man?

James: Definitely felt like a train wreck and I was like,

okay well this is going to be shit and I’m

not going to invite anybody.

Molly: And on some level I trusted Nic completely.

Just been my mistake all along, our whole friendship.

Steve: And then we started rehearsing and then of course

it started taking over and then I realized what

it was and I realized this vision that Nic had for the show

and I realized we were doing something special.

James: Looking around and looking at everybody’s

faces in the audience and just kind of stunned that

we actually got through it but also that some,

whatever just happened, something magical just happened.

Steve: But, I don’t think any of us, certainly

I didn’t have any idea what it was going to become

and what a huge part of my life it was going to be.

(multiple people talking)

Man with black hair: God will judge for whats going on.

Man with mustache: Makes Christ, who is sinless,

a sinner and it makes him a homosexual.

Man with hat: Defame our God, now I don’t think so.

Terrence: To quote, controversy, of Corpus Christi

was based on something that was never true.

That the play featured fellatio, sodomy, and other

unspeakable things, lots of nudity, very graphic

sexual acts, this kind of joyful, spiritual experience

became kind of lurid and tabloid and it really was

so shocking to me when that happened.

Larry: It so hard to pour your heart and you guts into

writing something that is so important and so painful

and that you want to share with the world and

to not have the support is exceeding painful.

Woman with had: You wouldn’t do this to any other faith

except the Catholic faith.

They wouldn’t do that to the Muslim faith or

make your Buddha nothing.

It’s always picking on the Catholic church.

Terrence: Suddenly we’re being denounced by everybody

and the phones start ringing off the hook at the theater,

and not to buy tickets a lot of it but, we’re

gonna blow you up and this and that and that’s when

the Manhattan Theater Club cancelled the production.

Athol Fugard and Tony Kushner was very vocal spokesman

and people who can reach the media.

Norman: And that’s why people for the American Way

got involved in the first place.

To attempt to keep other people from producing it

and anybody who may wish to see it, from seeing it.

That’s the unfortunate tact that they’re taking.

It was Barbara Hammond, she was People for the

American Way in New York, then I personally got involved.

It was Norman, Barbara, get your ass to New York.

(chuckles)

Larry: Nothing works better than a good protest.

You bet your bottom dollar.

Anson: The whole security situation started and we

had to go through the back way everyday and we

were issued these security passes and we had to have

new name tags everyday and there’s a bomb sniffing

dog and they were installing metal detectors in the theater.

Terrence: And it was a very unhealthy

atmosphere to do a play in.

Man with mustache: From those who have seen the play

we’ve talked to them, they’ve told us, they verified it.

Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic league was interviewed

yesterday on the radio, he spoke about the play.

Anson: it’s amazing what people can convince themselves of,

and how much, how, anger is a drug.

It really is, it can provide a lot of energy and it

can really keep you going.

William: You know the idea of a couple of men

kissing each other was not exactly the most offensive

thing in the world to me.

What I didn’t like was to misappropriate Jesus

and make him be crucified as the king of the Queers

because he approves of homosexuality and a priest

is telling him how bad homosexuality is and he says,

"I despise you," that’s a quote.

He engages in violence against the priest and the

all white audience sat there and they loved it.

Terrence: There’s this one guy, this William Donohue

who really was the big pot stirrer here.

William: And he said to the priest who was talking

about the biblical teachings on homosexuality that

" you have perverted my fathers words."

No, this play has perverted the scriptural teaching.

Anson: Donohue came, and he wont tell you this,

but he slept through the majority of it.

And then he came out and said, it’s exactly what

I thought it was gonna be, they’re denouncing Christ.

Mutherfucker you were snoring on the second row, house left.

Don’t try to pretend.

I had my monologue in [unintelligible] I looked

over, you were fucking snoozing.

Terrence: And I really think this play just showed

how thin the scab over homophobia is in this county and

how easily it’s picked off.

Tom: I guess because he’s my spouse I would also wish

that Terrence got a little more credit for taking a bold step.

Anson: You know I don’t want to, I don’t really don’t

want to try to make any of us sound like any sort

of martyrs or heroes or freedom fighters, because we’re not.

We’re just actors, but I did sit in my apartment and

write a letter to my mother and I left it on my

bed and I made sure my best friend had a key to

my apartment and I got rid of all my porn.

(laughs)

Tom: I think that the world was less willing to look

at what the play actually was, which was profound.

Terrence: I wish people say, what really upset us

about this play is that you said that gay men

and women can live good, moral, decent, Christian lives.

Melissa: I bless you, James Brandon.

I baptize you and I recognize your divinity

as a human being.

I love you, Brandon.

The baptisms are beautiful.

You cant, not be present and when I’m looking at

all those people that I love, for different reasons,

and telling them that, telling them I adore you,

it’s just beautiful, it’s a beautiful moment.

I’ve been waiting for you.

(sobbing)

Suzanne: We all have. There’s something

about being baptized in the play that’s very, magical.

It’s like in that moment, that’s when the

show really starts for me.

It’s when the journey really starts, because

I’m transformed into this other person.

Bob: Transition from Brandon to Joshua or whatever

character there is in there is a ritual transformation

of that person from ordinary space to sacred space.

And so it becomes a sacred story being told.

Melissa: I adore you Paulie, I christen you, Peter.

Paul: The baptist church that I came from before that

my father became minister, we spoke in tongues.

I was baptized, almost because I felt like I was

supposed to be baptized, it was kind of something

that was like this pressure that you

needed to become baptized.

Melissa: Talking to guides and spirits and seeing

things I was never told not to, that’s how I

was brought up.

It was never, oh no, no you don’t, oh you’re weird

or what is that, that was always just normal.

Oh she’s going off and playing with the fairies.

Paul: I grew up in a loving family, there was a

core love that was there that was quite beautiful,

but being gay was not accepted because it was

believed that, or it still is believed I think

for my mother, that you go to hell for all of eternity.

I felt like I had to leave that type of environment.

I felt like I have to accept myself as who I am

and if one of the ways is to accept that is to say

that I’m going to go to hell than, so be it.

Nic: I think my parents just expected, it was tradition

to go to church, they expected it of us.

And I think they tried, definitely tried, and

it was done on them, to guilt us.

If you don’t embrace Jesus, if you don’t love the

Catholic religion, then you don’t love us.

James: Everything is prim and proper and you go to

church and everything is perfect and

you don’t talk about your problems.

Suzanne: Christianity is constant, these are the rules,

this is absolute, this is how you have to do it

and I just didn’t agree with that.

Sheilagh: The rules, the structure of religion is like

okay, this is one thing in my life that makes sense.

And then there’s this community, there’s this community

of people who look like me, who love me because I’m

God’s child and as much as I loathe myself,

I could go there, that’s another thing, I could go there

and they love me because I was God’s child but

the biggest revelation I had, actually about spirit

came while I was really deep in my Christian practice

and it was, That he loves you no matter what.

Nic: More than anything I wanted children and I’ll

tell you when I did come out of the closet I

took a deep breath and I went, okay I gotta let it go.

I’m not gonna have kids and I’m okay with that,

I’m just going to have to be okay with that.

James: I don’t know what I did wrong, but I did

something wrong in my dad’s eyes.

I remember he had taken the belt off of him and

he had started hitting me and then I remember looking

and it’s such a strange visual, but I remember

seeing the cross with the palms from lent

I think it was over it and just staring at that visual

and thinking, even at that age, is this what

Jesus felt, in this time.

Jan: I get really upset with church because a lot

of awful things happen because of church.

I just, I don’t believe most of this stuff.

(laughs)

So, don’t do it.

James: The ten commandments really stuck with me.

I mean those are, I don’t know if that really a

bible story though.

David: Being a Jewish household, especially with

my grandparents, every so often they would refer

to somebody as a feygela which I found out, I don’t

think I really found out that they were gay but I found out

that if I meet them, they’d be very sort of swishy.

James: Like you can’t lie you can’t cheat,

covet their neighbor, thy wife or something or other.

David: And they were the feygela, which to this day

when I hear that I swear to God I want to take

a shotgun to people.

James: Don’t kill, right?

David: Call him a fag but don’t say it in Yiddish. Jesus.

James: No, I don’t remember anything.

David: Religion has never really had a lot of

resonance for me and I see it now, as I’ve always

seen it, as something that gets in the way.

Nic: I don’t choose to live a homosexual lifestyle,

I don’t choose that, that’s who I am.

I have to choose to live a lie,

and I’m not going to do that.

It’s just like theater, there has to be truth

and the truth is what connects us.

Lies don’t connect us,

and my life as a straight man would be a lie.

I wouldn’t be connected to the world,

I wouldn’t be who I am.

That would be a sin.

(crying)

Sheilagh: Joshua, Joshua, Joshua.

(laughs)

This is the Lord, God.

Your father, stop crying and be a man.

Much has been given to you because much

is expected of you.

I don’t know at what point in the play it

became something else.

It was like, I woke up and I was in a spiritual journey,

and I was working on my self issues and my spiritual

issues and any closeted phobias I had and what

left over bad tapes from Christian stuff I had.

It was like I was in a never ending therapy session.

James: The process of my father dying was when

I was re-introduced to God.

And all the angst my father had given me as a kid,

it was fascinating to me that in those two hours

I spent with him almost everyday were actually the

most sanctified and healing times I had lived

in my existence so far.

Sheilagh: Magic, miracles happen on that stage, they do.

They really do.

James: But, I feel like what I do know about my

fathers spirit is that, it is a part of me.

We are of the same essence.

I know that, at the core of him and of all

living things is the essence of love

and that’s to me what life is about and if you’re

caught up in your head then you’re not living

in the moment and that’s all there is.

Sheilagh: You will work miracles, you will demonstrate

patience and practice inextricable determination.

Bob: You can see that in the cast members,

that the story has become important and critical.

It’s become critical because the denial of same

sex love in this country is real.

James: Theater has always been, to me, a tool for teaching.

Without talking to a specific person in the audience

you’re actually talking to them.

You’re relating to them, you’re connecting to them.

And that’s the beauty of theater to me.

Why me?

Sheilagh: Why not you?

All men are divine.

James: What, I couldn’t hear you.

Sheilagh: All men are divine.

James: Why are you whispering?

Sheilagh: That is the secret you will teach them.

James: What if I don’t want to share this secret

with my fellow men.

Sheilagh: You wont be able to keep it.

James: What if I don’t believe it myself?

Sheilagh: No more questions Joshua, I’m gone.

James: Gone, what do you mean you’re gone.

You can’t be gone, you’re supposed to be

everywhere all the time.

Sheilagh: That is a very big misunderstanding.

Voiceover: Things manifested before my eyes that I

didn’t think were possible.

Perfect example of that was when we first started

to tour the show.

Sheilagh: It’s going to be this amazing mystical,

religious, spiritual experience and we’re going

to be blessed and we’re going to bless so many lives.

Brunette woman: Just like with God or the divine or the holy or

what you would call sacred, words fail to describe

the place in the heart that Corpus Christi touches.

Newsman: It depicts Jesus as a gay man, the play

drew protest a decade ago in New York City,

but will it still cause a stir here?

Melissa: I’m ready, I just want to go.

I think we’ve done all the prep work and we’ve

done all the charities and stuff.

We’ve got a couple more to go,

a little bit more money to raise.

Molly: It’s just the collective energy of all of us

going, we’re going, lets go.

And it’s not me going, oh we’re going to do it

cause we’re going to ride a stream and we’re just

going to go and it’s all gonna happen

and so, because we love each other.

I know there’s a lot of work behind the love

but I do know that we can all make that happen now.

Voiceover: Corpus Christi, which attracted protesters

back in 1998 when it was staged in New York City,

has since gone around the world.

Voiceover: I feel safe doing this show.

Even when we’ve gone to Scotland.

Jan: Don’t go out alone because the bishop

has said, you’re blasphemy.

Jimmy: That’s right, there’s a new play about

a gay Jesus, in this version Jesus

turns water into appletinis.

(audience laughter)

Voiceover: But it was magical, we lived

in a six bedroom flat in Edinburgh.

Molly: And all the schedules we had on the walls,

Liz will be on her menstrual cycle from this

date to this date, then I get this week.

(laughter)

Steve: With Corpus Christi we lived together,

we grocery shopped together, we did that for a month.

And we, honestly, became a family.

Nic: With the Corpus Christi family, I guess

I would feel most like the dad.

The biggest gift I feel I was given from, whatever

entity is being a dad.

Blonde woman: I’m getting choked up just talking about it.

Because there was so much love between each

of these people before they got into

the role of the play.

Jan: I never used to say, I love you, to people.

What, I mean you know, what? You got to be kidding.

Blonde woman: I honestly think this play is just

moving huge amounts of energy in the world right now

to a place where we can start loving each other.

Jan: How did I learn how to love?

I’m not real sure, that I really have.

Really not sure.

Nic: But I see these people inspire each other

to meditate, I see them inspire each other to

argue, don’t just sell yourself on that, really argue.

Inspire each other to treat each other with respect.

And it’s really thrilling.

Jan: Well what I thought family was, was a mother

and a father and children and some aunt and uncles.

Family now, to me, is kind of like a director,

some actors, (laughs)

it’s just a, yea that’s what it is.

Brunette woman: I walk in as one person and

I came out as another person and I watched

an entire audience transform until everyone dissolved

and there was just one group, like one soul,

one heart on a journey.

Molly: Everywhere we go we collect family.

I think Steve Susoyev was one of them.

Steve: When I first saw Corpus Christi I think as

one often experiences with something that feels

a little bit bigger than life, I thought,

I want these people in my life, I want to be around

them and I want to get to know them and have

them contribute something to my life too.

And I sensed that, that could happen.

Molly: There have been several audience members

where when we go and sit down at the end or

before we go back out and I just remember placing

my hands on his shoulders and he was just sobbing.

And that just felt so connected at that point.

Steve: I’ve fallen in love with this play,

so for me, travelling, going to Scotland for that

run in the French festival, I got to see large

numbers of people from different parts of the world

seeing the play for the first time, seeing,

as I had done, seeing something that they

weren’t expecting to see.

Blonde woman: I grew up in a very, Christian home,

baptist to be specific.

Man in white: I was raised a fundamental Christian, pentecostal.

Man in stripes: I am a Buddhist.

Blonde woman: My departure from the church directly

had to do with the AIDS epidemic.

Red haired woman: I mean it’s either separation

of church and state or it’s not.

Blonde woman: My childhood pastor, the man that I

grew up with my whole life, came out and said that

it was God’s way of smiting.

Priest: Prejudice is a very wicked thing, it’s

so contrary to everything, what is the real Christian gospel.

Red haired woman: And you let any old idiot boy and girl

get married, I mean it just doesn’t

make any sense to me, whatsoever.

Man in white: And the night the I came to see

Corpus Christi I almost came antagonistically,

four years ago to just go okay,

what is this blasphemous crap.

Woman in glasses: My family is everywhere over Texas,

I understand a lot of the, there’s a reason I’m not in Texas.

Man with beard: I just wonder if things had be different

in Texas, had Jesus been there when I was growing

up and that’s kind of what I’m going to be wondering all night.

Man in white: And I wept, and I wept and I wept

and I brought twelve friends to the next performance.

Man in stripes: I guess I had that kind of

preconceived notion going into it that it would

be some kind of, I don’t know, maybe over the top

flaming drag queen kind of show that it really

wouldn’t have much meaning to me and,

I’m sorry. As it turned out, it had a lot of meaning.

Elizabeth: This is the scary part of the trip.

Miles and miles of desert up ahead.

Nothing but sand and hate.

Not a place you wanna break down in.

I did once, left me a changed man.

You ever been alone like that?

Could drive a person, crazy.

Terrence: I mean it’s a scary place.

And that’s very much, I mean I wrote the scene

with the truck driver and very much Texas is

lots of lonely roads, God forsaken and

I would hate to be stranded in any of those places.

Elizabeth: You can perish in the desert, very quickly.

It’s not something to fuck around with.

Terrence: And that’s when the devil can become apparent.

Through James Dean, in a funny way.

I think you would be challenged by your demons

if you were left in the desert.

Suzanne: That’s how I died.

That Porsche with the buzzard sitting on it.

You know how you’re gonna die?

James: No.

Suzanne: You want to know?

I felt like growing up I was being lied to alot.

I was being lied to in regards to who I was.

I had people telling me, well you’re a girl

you’re supposed to do these things that are

very feminine, that are very girly.

In fact I was absolutely devastated when I realized

I wasn’t going to be a boy.

James: For God so loved the world he gave his only son to us.

(chuckles)

Suzanne: And he chose you.

I never got asked to go to the dances and if I did

it was always very awkward and I was like, ugh

I have to wear this dress and dress shopping was like trauma.

The same with bra shopping, I don’t want to do this,ever.

Mmm, you will feel nothing but yourself.

Your needs, your pleasures, a small price for all that.

Are you ready?

James: But it would be a lie.

Mark: When I started doing the play, I wasn’t

out of my dark place yet.

I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt and I

remember sitting in the emergency area outside

waiting to go home, after they finally released me,

and just thinking, how did I get here?

How did this happen to me.

Sheilagh: The drugs, it was normal.

So when I tell people I started doing cocaine

when I was thirteen people go, what?

It was normal, they were everywhere.

Mark: There is acceptance in using and running around

the people and, it was sort of this false camaraderie.

As that became more important in my life, people like

Nic, who were always super important to me and

who I care about deeply, didn’t matter anymore.

Sheilagh: My mother’s white and my fathers black,

they divorced when I was two.

Jan: My folks were very southern, very redneck.

Sheilagh: It was a very segregated town,

the black people in Las Vegas call it, little Mississippi.

Jan: Sheilagh’s going to kill me if she hears this

but, niggers were good as long as they kept their place.

Sheilagh: Stories of black folk being buried in the desert.

That’s sort of where the cops took you.

Jan: When I was, that’s wild, when I was really

young I had a black nanny and I, wow.

I can’t talk about that, because it always gets me.

When we moved, she didn’t come.

So it’s like, I think a hidden thing way inside

that really make me crazy.

Sheilagh: I spend a lot of my time, feeling like

an outcast, I just sort of didn’t fit in.

Which is probably how I ended up in the theater

cause I think that’s where outcast go,

is to the theater.

Jan: You can’t get rid of some of the things

you were very carefully taught.

Voiceover: Life on newstalk 106 to 108.

Voiceover: It has been the source of protest and

controversy in many countries, this week Corpus Christi,

a stage play which depicts Jesus as a gay man

living in America in the 1950’s opened in Dublin

and it opened last night as part of the Dublin

gay theater festival which has already been criticized

here as offensive to Christians.

Steve: People, I was one of the people, were expecting

some trouble, here’s a Catholic country.

So I walk up and I’m going to confront them and I

started asking them questions.

So how many times have you seen this play?

Well of course I knew they hadn’t and I’m setting

them up and the woman said, we haven’t seen it.

So you’re protesting a play you haven’t even seen.

You haven’t even read the script, I’m getting

louder and louder and then Suzanne, a member of

the cast comes out with a little video camera

and asks these people, may I talk to you I’m in

the play and I’d like to talk to you about it.

Suzanne: Have you seen that play or read it?

Woman in white: No, I read about it.

Suzanne: You read about it but you’ve never actually

got the script or...

Woman in white: No, don’t know. We know what it’s

about so we don’t need to know every last word.

Suzanne: Oh really?

Man in glasses: It’s offensive, objectively independent

of our subjective opinions.

So that’s why I’m here to protest against

to make people aware of it.

Suzanne: Are you with, do you practice a particular Christian-

Woman in white: Yea, we’re Roman Catholics.

Suzanne: Roman Catholic?

Woman in White: Yea. That’s the one true church

founded by Christ.

There are other Christian denominations but

the Catholic church is the one true church,

it’s the only one founded by him.

Man with glasses: How would you define what love is?

Suzanne: Oh love is, it’s the only thing that matters

and God’s given us that capacity to love each other,

openly and accepting everyone.

That’s how I would explain it.

Woman in white: When you believe in something you...

Suzanne: Of course.

Woman in white: Really should stand up for it and, why not?

Man with glasses: You know, shows like this endanger people

and they trivialize religion.

You know there’s, we lost a sense of the sacred

and somethings are beyond trifling with.

David: They haven’t read it, they haven’t seen it

and that is just one more way of saying, you see

you hate what you don’t understand.

You hate what you’re not willing to look at.

You’re not willing to, I’m willing to look at you.

Steve: I think there’s bigotry and discrimination

and I don’t think it comes from a place of hate

I think it comes from a place of ignorance.

David: This play has taught me that you have something

that you believe in that’s very important to you.

Steve: It’s no longer okay just to say, oh we’re

gonna agree to disagree.

Not when the other side is so wrong.

I’m trying to understand you, why can’t you

fucking try to understand me.

Suzanne: Do you go home tonight?

Woman in white: Yea, yea we do.

Suzanne: Travel back safely.

Woman in white: Well, thank you.

Suzanne: Yea, no problem.

Yea and be well. Be well.

Tom: Suzanne she was gentle, she got them smiling

and talking and it was very simple.

And something in Suzanne’s approach really touched me.

I thought, I want to think I can do that.

Suzanne: To come across adults who are just so

unaware of this larger concept of community, it’s

something so simple that children get, as long

as you teach it to them.

But if you’re teaching them hate and if you’re

teaching them discrimination, they’re gonna

go down that road.

Elizabeth: I think it will be a lot tougher for us

to go into these regions that may really need to

see the show, right?

But I think it takes more courage to go there.

But I think we should do it, we should probably do it.

But I can’t tell you that I’m not nervous.

(harmonica music)

(laughter)

James: Then as it went on and as we were having to just

continue to expand the family that was created

originally into something more and that always

stuck with me because it was so, easy really.

Man in brown: Hi. (chuckles)

Matthew: Yea, I just joined the cast but

I’m actually from Corpus Christi, Texas.

So I grew up there and so I sort have kind of

a personal relationship to the material and I had

seen the cast do it over the past couple of years

since Steve and I have been together.

(multiple voices)

Anna: It’s going to be a medium close up so...

Man in brown: Let me move the bench a little.

Alright, lets get the bench.

Anna: I thought they’ve been doing this for years,

I got to be prepared, I got to be on my toes.

Also, meeting people that you’re gonna have this

very emotional experience with was like knowing

that you’re going to have to go through that with

strangers and not just strangers to you but they

all knew each other.

That was very, very strange.

It’s was very strange, very scary at first.

Man in short sleeve: And they striped him of his robes-

Anna: And the thing that’s so important about this show

is that it’s not in bubble, the show doesn’t

exist in it’s own universe.

(multiple screaming)

James: Woah.

Man in brown: I got him.

(laughter)

(multiple voices)

Man with sign: Do not call yourself a Christian.

You’re a liar and deceiver.

(indistinct distance shout from picketer)

Man holding sign: Lets see how that little

[unintelligible] on your faces is gonna pass on judgement day.

Man with cap: Hell when you die, sweetheart.

James: That man just called me sweetheart.

(car horn)

Voiceover: Well there’s a lot of issues, you know

the reality is the bible is very clear on these things.

And my own personal opinion, I don’t even need a

bible for this stuff, this is like a no duh.

I mean one guy bent over another guy, doing him

in his keister, I hate to be so crude but

lets get it out on the table here.

Nic: And we need to send them our love, we need

to send them our good thoughts.

James: And just something to think about too I just,

they may stay this time, for the show so

we make them part of the show.

Man with glasses: In this culture over the last

20 years things have digressed to this point where

people can pick on any religion except for Islam.

No one says anything about Islam.

Nic: We may think they’re misguided, we may wish

their passion was used in a different way but

it’s their place at this time and we have to love them.

David: Get undressed, you got five minutes.

Did you hear what I said?

James: I love you.

David: Say what?

James: I love you Phillip.

David: Yea I love you too Charlie.

I hope you have rubbers. I’m positive.

Steve: And for me the moment of truth, the defining

moment in the play was Phillip.

Elizabeth: So this positive thing, you know when

you heard oh you’re positive, then you’re very

on guard, so that means you wont be here.

You wont be here and how long and they were very frank.

Well we think, you know and then boom.

At that time period they were just, gone.

And that was brutal for me.

I was like in my 20’s, that was extremely hard

and it leaves you a little bit guarded.

David: I can’t imagine what anyone with any kind

of ongoing health issue, what it does to you.

I don’t think you could put yourself- I can’t say.

I can’t put myself in their shoes, because it’s

not happening to me, it may happen someday.

Mark: I can remember doing that scene in the

beginning of the run and I hadn’t really shared my HIV

status with any of my cast members or really anybody.

Anna: I never actually thought I would know so

many people who are HIV positive.

And I grew up in a very, very sheltered world

and that was something that I didn’t think was

going to be apart of my reality, in a way.

That it was other, it happened to other people

not people I knew.

Elizabeth: But there was something I guess I needed

to learn when I was younger about the frigility

of life and, but unfortunately what I don’t like is

that it took all the, it just took the best, it

always takes the best, the best and my creative

friends it was like (breathy whistle sound)

His name is Phillip Erwin, you know he kicked it

for a long time but when he finally, I don’t know

he just knew and at least he came and said goodbye.

But he’s, he’s gone and he’s not coming back so

you have to have a respect of these fucking viruses.

Larry: It’s a plague and it’s never been treated

as a plagues, it was a plague from the very beginning

and they refused to use that word.

And huge, huge, huge parts of the world are just

overwhelmed with it, millions of people, millions.

I guess what troubled me from day one is there’s

never been anyone in charge, never.

You know you have a war you should have a general, right?

Steve: To me, Phillip was like a lot of gay men.

He was angry, he desperately wanted connection with

other people and the only way he knew how to

get that was exploiting his sexuality and I

think that is, that has been me,

that’s been so many of us.

David: You love the idea of telling someone like me

that you love them, makes you feel good.

Well love, this!

Troy: I thought he was doing well for about two weeks

and then he called his mother and then he told me

I’m gonna commit suicide, he had seen his friends

dying from this disease.

James: I think I can heal you.

I think I can make you well.

David: I think you can suck my dick now faggot.

(loud inhale from all on stage)

James: Father heal this man.

Mark: That when he had said that it was almost

like somebody punched me in the back.

My back was to the audience and touching one cast

member and our arms are up and sort of a vulnerable

position anyway and then to hear Joshua say

you’re healed, and he said I wish I could believe it

and he says well then do.

And I wanted so desperately to believe that.

Troy: I said, I promise you, I will lay hands on

you and pray for you every night.

Phillip: Every night he would, he would, before

he would go to sleep he would lay hands on me

and he’d pray for me and I know that over the

course of these twenty three, twenty four years

not only has Troy been praying for me but other

MCC churches have had me in their prayer circles

and that I count that as one of the reason why

I’m still alive is in the power of prayer.

James: You are healed, Phillip.

David: I wish I could believe that.

(sobbing)

James: Then do.

As you believe, so shall you be.

Mark: I wanted so desperately to believe that, I wanted

to believe that, I wanted that to be me.

(laughs)

I wanted to be that character, I wanted to be

the one kneeling there and having him,

have it all be okay.

Anna: It’s beautiful and healing in one way

but it’s also very sad in another way because

we don’t have a Jesus here who can heal them

or can take it away.

Bob: Jesus had a capacity of really mustering

within a human person that encountered him the

capabilities of people healing themselves and

they believe themselves healed.

Our immune systems respond because of how we feel.

Troy: And twenty three years later he started

with thirty six pills and he’s down to one and

his HIV is non detectable.

Phillip: It’s just always so nice when someone

you love puts their hands on you to try and ease your pain.

Man with beard: The reason he destroyed those cities

was because of sodomy, homosexuality.

The very thing that’s spinning America into the

vile actions that are taking place today, folks.

Mark: Bartholomew and I wanted our union blessed for a long time.

Some acknowledgement of what we were to each other.

Matthew: We asked Josh, they said it was against the

law and the priest said it was forbidden by scripture.

Mark: If a man lies with another man as with a woman

they have both committed an abomination and

should be put to death.

Their blood is upon them.

James: Why would you memorize such a terrible passage.

(laughter)

Cindi: That’s my theology about that, why on

earth would you memorize that.

But then, if you’re going to then you must

memorize the other six hundred and thirty two Levitial

prohibitions or permissions and you must follow them.

James: And God saw everything that he made and

behold it was very good.

I can quote scripture as well as the next man.

Cindi: When they say oh you have to pay attention

to these passages that I think may refer to same

gender loving relationships, which they did not

they referred to temple prostitutes and all kinds

of things that had nothing to do with homosexuality.

James: God loves us most when we love each other.

We accept you and we bless you.

Cindi: So if you choose to lean on that passage

to hurt another human being,

then you haven’t chosen Jesus.

James: Now who’s got a ring.

Mark: You mean you’ll do it?

James: If you say nobody else will.

Matthew: Wait, out here, someone might see.

James: Where would you be married Bartholomew

down a dark hall?

Matthew: There was something about looking into

his eyes, making that decision that I’m going

to commit myself to this person for life.

I don’t really know what that really means but

I think I got a glimpse of it and it was beautiful.

Molly: Personally, I don’t know if I’ll get married

again, but I know that there are so many more

federal rights that you get as a married couple

that you don’t get in a civil union and I

don’t think it’s fair to withhold that from

people that want that.

James: It is good when two men love each

other as James and Bartholomew do and we

recognize their union.

Terrence: Now we’ve become terrible marriage advocates

and people, friend of ours, don’t bring it up we

don’t want to get married,

Terrence: We’ve been together 25 years Tom: We’ve gotten straight couples married

We’ve gotten two straight couples to get married

but none of our gay friends.

Tom: Cohabited for decades and-

Terrence: But lived together for years-

Tom: But at that end

Terrence: And they’re very glad they did they said

you’re right, it changes everything.

Joseph: The love we share is a gift to everybody

else because it’s just, like I said before, it’s

part of that God, that spark of God that’s between

us that we have a chance to share with other people.

James: I bless this marriage in your name, Father, amen.

Matthew: I absolutely want to get married, I do, but I can’t,

but I can’t, I can’t have that and that’s what really sucks.

James: Have you come to bless this marriage too Father?

Elizabeth: It is one thing for you to preach your perversions

to ignorant and sentimental men and women such as

yourselves but such travesties of Gods natural order

will never be blessed in the house of the lord.

Man with beard: Not one of the people who proclaim that

this is a valid lifestyle or whatever would be here

at all if it weren’t for a man and a woman.

And that’s the way God started it, that’s the way

it should be and that’s the way it’s gonna end.

Bob: The Vatican has come out and condemned me as

a gay man to prevent me from getting married and

screams traditional family values whereas two to

three hundred thousand sexual minors in the United States

have been abused, where is traditional family values.

Why aren’t they protecting the children of Catholics.

Man with Beard: The downfall of any culture is moral degradation.

So it is what it is.

Tom: We have a structure whereby rights are conferred

upon to people who do that and so if we have such

a structure we have to give it to everybody we can’t be

selective about it or we can’t call ourselves a democracy.

James: When it was women’s right, when it was the

rights of Jews to live an equal life, when it was

the rights of African Americans to live an equal life.

Tom: Loving v. Virginia which was the miscegenation,

the supreme court case which

struck down miscegenation laws.

Laws that said that inter-racial marriages could be

prohibited by the states.

James: When these waves of movements happened, there’s

a lot of ego and fear and challenge brought up.

People fighting against the change.

Tom: That was 1969, that’s 41 years ago.

Why it takes us so long to learn from the

mistakes of history is maddening to me.

Sheilagh: Nic and I had a real hard time around

sort of the prop 8 stuff.

Nic: It really just felt like it was going to happen

at some point anyway, then Prop 8 happened and I

so detached myself from it and I realized I

detached myself because I felt like all over again

the world was telling me, you are wrong,

you’re not worthy and we’re not going to give you this.

Not even that, they’re going to take it away from me.

That got me worked up.

Sheilagh: And it wasn’t just from Nic it was like

there were really horrible things being said about

Africans, African Americans, country by white gay folk

and black folks that went to try and stand in solidarity

that had racial slurs hurled at them.

Nic: I don’t like people being offended when its

called a civil rights movement, I’m offended

when they tell me that its not.

Sheilagh: The revolutionary in me,

says why are gay people fighting so hard to fit

into the system that can’t stand them.

Man with beard: America is going down hill, fast.

And the abomination that’s being taught in this

church is very much one of those reasons.

God hates homosexuality. God hates you.

James: You are hypocrites. You are liars.

You have perverted my fathers words to make them

serve your ends, I despise you.

Matthew: I think that if we were to have a second

coming of Christ or whatever I think that he would

just be so very disappointed and that really

breaks my heart, because it wouldn’t be that he’s

disappointed in the gay community, you know.

It would be because he’s disappointed that

people aren’t loving each other.

Woman in pink: The controversial play, Corpus Christi

made it’s Dallas debut tonight.

It portrays Jesus as gay.

You might remember Tarleton State University cancelled

the play earlier this year citing, safety concerns.

Nic: We have avoided Texas for a long time

but when we heard about the cancellation of

the student production, it just spoke to us.

James: And then you have other shows that have

since been cancelled because of, for that same reason

and it is hard not to go into a space thinking

that, okay, well this is what we’re entering.

I am definitely starting to receive a lot of emails

that are, hurtful, I would say.

This one person just wrote me an email

[unintelligible] when you come to Texas I find you

and I will hurt you.

And it’s just so weird to me because, it’s weird

to say that out loud, it scares me a little bit,

just that someone is that extreme.

Molly: I felt a little bit of fear for Brandon,

just like a gut reaction.

If say the shows were interrupted

by somebody in the audience.

Nic: I think our best bet, and I have felt like

there was a group consensus on this, is to just stop.

If it sounds threatening, we’re going to

walk away and we’ll be back.

I’m responsible for more than just my own life

now, I’m responsible for two children and I might

be willing to take risks but I have to recognize

that any risk I take on myself and anything that

happens to me profoundly effects these two little children.

Melissa: We’re just, protected on so man levels.

I think we can feel that with us, just our family

that we are and this play is protected, this production

and I think it keeps resonating, the protection levels

go up and up and up and out and out and out and

I just see really good stuff.

I do see people getting stirred up,

but that’s why we’re doing this.

I think it’s great that we’re going to Texas.

I think it’s time that we go to Texas.

Wave our rainbow flag down south.

Paul: There’s something that will be very,

that will mean a lot to me to go back to a place

that I grew up in and felt so, like I had to hide to protect myself.

And kind of excited that it will stir people and

people will protest it because I like that

I want to be apart of something that will challenge

people and this definitely will do that.

Mark: We’re wandering into that bible belt now,

we’re wandering into that sort of uber Christian

land of, this is what’s right and this is what’s wrong

and there’s no, there zero grey area.

I think awareness also brings certain amount of

strength as well, going into something and knowing,

just being sharp and kind of carrying your wits about you.

But I think it’s important.

Melissa: And it’s the right time.

I mean we could have done this, what two years

ago, three years ago but we didn’t we’re going

this time, we’re leaving in a few days and

we’re doing it right now, now is the right time

because we’re going now.

Bob: I think you run into a little more difficulty

when you get into Texas.

I think Texas is a heavily bible belt.

I’m not sure even Texas is really part of the

United States but that’s my opinion but it’s

worthwhile because it may be going into the heart of darkness.

Sheilagh: I think it’s a mistake to take the show

to the south and not be real, real clear about

what we’re doing and that we could possibly be

endangering people and that when people make the

choice to get on those planes or on that bus

or whatever, that they understand what they’re doing.

Jo: We had the Dallas police come in to

talk to us, they said that their greatest concern

was the silent, angry, mentally unstable person.

Molly: You spell the word, violence

to get into the peace center.

Jan: You know, we could just be there and some

kook can decide to bomb us or something.

Jo: Any church knows that, that’s your greatest risk.

Somebody wandering in, unassuming, looks ordinary

and yet are so emotionally unstable that

they would do violence.

Sheilagh: They take their Jesus very seriously there

and when I think about taking a gay Jesus play

to the south it almost makes me think that

God has sort of kept us safe up to now because we

gone need all of our strength.

Bob: There is a price to pay with visibility.

So performing in theater context that is so volatile,

especially touching homophobia, that internalized

homophobia is used to strike out and

it’s usually to strike out violently.

Mark: If there going to be somebody stupid out there,

if we went to Texas that’s just that proud of

Corpus Christi, Texas and just that in love with the

idea that Jesus is only one way that something

bad could happen, that’s a little spooky.

Sheilagh: At a minimum there will be crowds,

at a maximum someone could get seriously hurt.

Jo: I just decided that, that we could bare the risk.

And we doubled our security and we did all the

right things, we were completely prepared.

Anna: Well my boyfriend was really concerned about

that when I first told him, he was thinking not only

do you have people who are going to be protesting

but you have people who have guns who are

going to be protesting.

James: I remember when I first got that one email

where he said he’d hurt me if I came to Texas

and had a whole plan of how he would

do that which I actually,

I think what kind of shocked me the most

is how intricate if was.

Sheilagh: Sort of having this fear in the pit of

my stomach that someone was going to be outside,

waiting for your guys, waiting for my family.

James: You know he’ll come to the theater and

he’ll be in the line of protesters and we wont know

him because we don’t know what he looks like.

Bob: There are a lot of fanatic, crazy, pathalogical

Christians out there.

James: And we’re gonna walk through and then he’s

going to come out and like have a gun and just

shoot as many people as he can.

Newsman: In the end a church hosted this controversial play.

And after weeks of outcry, on opening night,

not a single protester.

James: Made me very aware of the preciousness of life

and how grateful I was to be alive.

And if that email had to be a catalyst for that,

well then I want to thank that man who threatened me.

Paul: If you look at the hatred to now where we

take it to Texas and there’s no controversy at all.

We have come a long way, we’ve come a long way

and we’ve got a long way to go.

Got a long way to go.

Terrence: This production of Corpus Christi I was

blessed to find a director and cast who

got what I was doing in a way that I didn’t know

when I was writing it.

I felt I finally saw my play cause in New York

the original production, with the police dogs

and the metal detectors and the protesters, I never

really saw the play it was too harrowing a social event.

But every so often, something takes on it’s own

life and enters consciousness of other people and

that’s finally why you do it, I think.

Norman: Thank God for people like Terrence McNally.

Some of the subjects are so important in American life,

would never have been discussed had he not raised them.

Nic: I hear my cast talk about great things that

the show has done for them and I sincerely believe

that, and I know it’s done incredible things for me.

But I also recognize that a lot of them have evolved

a lot further than I have.

It’s like raising a child, you push them forward

and they go off and live and then you’re left

going, oh I forgot to evolve, myself.

Suzanne: I’ve really found a spiritual way for myself.

And I feel like everything that I’ve learned from it

I will continue to give to other people.

Cindi: The whole point of Jesus coming wasn’t

his death, burial and Resurrection.

That’s important but what’s really important was

exactly how he lived his life out moment by moment.

Bob: I keep remembering the line in Isiah,

my house is a house of prayer for all peoples.

I think Corpus Christi is addressing that and

it has become part of the message to deal with

homophobia and so yeah there’s power there and

the cast I think realizes that.

Listening to them talk about their spirituality,

it was clear that their spirituality is Corpus Christi.

James: I think the dialogue that I have found

is being created is within our community that has

felt ostracized and lost and now feel

found again through this piece.

Then our community comes from an empowered place

of being and that empowerment is what will make

the change happen that everyone is seeking.

Not all the fighting, not all the negativity

but simply living from an empowered place,

which we are creating, we are able to make bigger

changes then we would have ever thought possible.

Nic: I really look toward Corpus Christi to keep me

centered and so the idea of it ending, the only

thing that stops me from getting emotional about that

is the knowledge that this show, the performances

may stop but the message is already out there.

Jan: I will remember most, how kind everybody was.

And I know that I wont be in touch with everybody.

There wont be the rehearsal, there wont be the show

so there wont be that circle.

It’ll be a great part of my life.

Getting close to the end of it.

I don’t get to tears a lot so sometimes I feel

like that’s a negative, should be able to do that

but it doesn’t happen.

David: But I’ve always said if I ever got arrested

I’m not sure who I’d call.

This group is the closest I’ve gotten to the

group that, I feel, has my back.

So that’s been the biggest blessing through this.

Matthew: I can’t even remember the last time that I felt

some sets of spirituality in my life or in my

thinking or, you know? (laughs)

I find myself talking about the universe, which

is so weird, I never do that.

I never talk about energy and all that stuff

but, I do now.

Steve: I’m not naive enough to think that

this is going to happen again.

It doesn’t matter what play, movie, tv show I

ever work on again, I’m not gonna have this experience

where we, the emails or the fan letters that we

get aren’t, hey I thought you were good, hey your

acting is this or that or whatever but it’s, wow

I said a prayer before I went to be last night,

I haven’t done that before.

And you transcend art into something more for people.

I don’t think I’ll have that again and that’s

what I will take away from Corpus Christi.

Molly: I almost get embarrassed or don’t feel worthy

in some way that I get to be apart of this vehicle

or apart of this, it’s overwhelming to me cause it

doesn’t even feel like it’s me speaking and it’s

Terrence’s words and it’s a play, it just overwhelms me.

James: Well I think the reflection of it too is

just the fact of our own personal journeys with

faith and whatever form that takes and how like

for me, being raised Catholic and going through my

whole kind of estrangement from it because of

being gay and everything else I don’t believe in

with organized religion, this play healed a lot

of those wounds for me.

David: You know the talking of faith and peoples

faith, I’m sort of just this [unintelligible] I’m

as spiritually bankrupt as I’ve always been.

(multiple disagreements)

Melissa: I think, pardon my French but that’s bullshit.

Mark: It is.

Melissa: You’re not bankrupt in any way and the

only way that you allow that to happen is by feeling it.

And I hope that you feel as great as you are.

Mark: I was in such a shitty place when I came into this

play, I was using drugs when I started this play.

I was a mess, I was a mess and such an unhappy person.

Sheilagh: I can’t say that after diagnosis of HIV

that I would be sober and living and seeking

out love and working and travelling and living

his life to the fullest.

I mean he’s taken a journey that of peace I need to take.

Mark: Nic knew me when I was a little boy,

we’ve know each other since we were little kids

and he had the faith in me to know that I

have this inside of me and he didn’t let go of it,

he didn’t throw me away.

Nic: You threw yourself away, you gave up on yourself.

But I couldn’t bring you back, that wasn’t me,

you brought yourself back.

Jan: I would like to say a lot of things, but I can’t.

Cause I can’t get it out,

and it’s very embarrassing because

we were never allowed to cry.

Sheilagh: Jan I really identify with on a number

of levels and have much empathy for the path

her life has taken.

Jan: If you cry I’ll give you something-

Sheilagh: To cry about.

Jan: To cry about. I suppose this is something

to cry about, you can’t talk while you’re crying.

I just love you all so much and you can’t

go away because I will miss you.

Voiceover: It’s good to get out there and meet your

fellow human beings, they’re pretty amazing group

if you let them in.

Voiceover: It’s not just about this cast being

a family and being friends with each other,

they now exist together and I love that.

Voiceover: But from love that we all have, that

we’re all connected to, we are all together in this.

Voiceover: I believe everybody’s on their own path.

But it’s a hell of a lot more fun to believe in something.

It’s a big beautiful world and if you just think about

yourself and this is it, you die and that’s it,

it can be so lonely.

To think that we’re all connected, we all have

the same spark of light within us is beautiful.