HomoQuotable - Steve Schalchlin

"Gay people who are raised in a religious environment, a conservative religious environment are basically told, 'You're not good enough / you don't belong here / you need to change / you need to be something else.' And so, in a lot of our lives, we end up leaving the church and hating God or hating Religion or hating the whole nine yards. But an inherently spiritual person doesn’t really lose the core of their being. So it’s going to come out somewhere."

"I think that what we discovered is that it comes out of theater, because theater and church are essentially the same thing. They are story-telling, they are inspirational, and they are true. Theatre brings an even higher truth sometimes. Church basically repeats the same old story over and over again. I often wonder if that’s not one of the reasons so many gay people wind up getting into theater. We’re always told that the reasons are because we're used to hiding and wearing masks and being somebody else. But I think there's something more profound." - Steve Schalchlin, in an extensive interview with the San Francisco Sentinel. (Via Andrew Sullivan.)

That's a fascinating take on why some of the gays go into the performing arts. If you are a performer, do you agree? Steve and his partner Jim Brochu's hit musical, The Big Voice: God Or Merman, has extended its run at SF's New Conservatory Theatre through August 26th. Here's my review of The Big Voice's recent Off Broadway run.