Last Tuesday, About Face Theater performed The Home Project, a piece of “journalism theater” that tells the stories of LGBTQ youth whose own families kicked them out of their homes after they came out. The group of performers came from Chicago to give a performance in which they attempt to “advance the national dialogue on gender and sexuality.” The performance, sponsored by the Theater and Dance department, the Sue Carroll Smith Fund and the Center for Leadership, was dedicated to Lawrence King, a 15-year-old boy from Oxnard, CA who was recently shot in the head and killed by another young boy for being gay. The performance focused on these youths’ individual experiences with coming out to their families and the often unimaginable difficulties they faced as a consequence of their identities.

The show began with each of the four actors presenting their own real-life stories to the audience. Their approaches were compelling, idiosyncratic, funny and poetic. After the audience had become acquainted with the experiences of the actors themselves, they acted out stories of other LGBTQ youth. All of these stories were also real, and all of the actors’ words were the words of the people they portrayed.

Some of the stories had happier endings, while others did not. Each actor, however, was able to address certain key issues through his or her performance, reminding the audience that people who identify as LGBTQ have huge problems with acceptance throughout America.

Ultimately, The Home Project was a success on a number of fronts. It allowed the audience to hear real stories, almost completely unfiltered, about the lack of acceptance that LGBTQ people face from society as well as from their own families.

On a more important level, however, The Home Project forces the audience to confront the ‘us/them’ distinction that many people draw between LGBTQ people and everyone else. After the show, actor Déjà Taylor said, “I should be able to exist as a regular person, just like anyone else.” If nothing else, The Home Project makes us realize the necessity of creating a world in which this is possible.