Growing up knowing you’re gay can bring about many emotions and pressures and anxieties of being able to come out to those who love you. Now imagine trying to do it as the son of an Evangelical priest and hearing sermons every Sunday about the evils of homosexuality.

Adam Bailey shares his personal journey of his incredibly difficult experience, and he does it in a way that had his audience laughing — but also entrenched to the emotional side of his story.

You can immediately tell that he’s the son of a preacher. He starts out his performance sharing what his church’s communion was like. He shared a loaf of bread and Welch’s grape juice and at one point in his performance he played a game called “Lets Challenge the Devout.”

While at times he took the comedic approach to get his message across, there’s the darker side of a young man who struggles with the ability to come out to his family. It pushes him further and further away. His trips home, become few and far between.

When he arrives at university, he feels like this will be the perfect opportunity to explore his sexuality. But, he quickly realizes that the dating scene in the homosexual world will take a lot to get used to.

After experiening love and heartbreak early on, he struggles with the lifestyle. He at one point gets just as comfortable in a bath house as he did in his local church communion, experimenting with cocaine, “poppers” and “rebound sex”.

It wasn’t until he came home for the funeral for his grandfather that he comes to the realization that he needs to come to grips with his life. He needs to find comfort in his sexuality, and reconcile with his family.

Bailey does a great job portraying the friction and the struggles his family endured, and you finally see him at peace when he comes home with his fiancee ready to “come out” to his family — and he realizes that his family will still accept him.

This play is a great example how people’s views are changing for the better when it comes to LGBT community, but there are struggles that have come with it, and it was great to have Bailey share his experience with us.

4.5/5