It’s your chance once more to help get an interesting sounding gay-themed movie into cinemas by giving a bit of cash to a Kickstarter campaign to help fund Facing East, a movie adaptation of Carol Lynn’s acclaimed stage play, which Tony nominated Broadway actor and director Will Swenson is hoping to bring to the screen.
Guinevere Turner (Go Fish, American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page) has written the screenplay, which follows ‘Alex and Ruth McCormick, an upstanding Mormon couple who have done everything right. He is a well-known radio personality, “One-Minute Dad,” giving great ideas on how to be a good father. She is a mother who has sacrificed everything for her family and is determined to lead each of her three children into God’s “celestial kingdom”, where they will be together as a family for all eternity. Theirs is an ideal life. Except for one flaw, which has brought them now to a point of crisis.
‘Their gay son Andrew, who had not been “healed” from his homosexuality despite every effort, and who had for a year been living with a man that he loved… has taken his own life in a flower bed beside the Salt Lake Mormon temple.’
While Ruth is relieved that her tortured boy is in God’s healing hands and feels the less said about unpleasant things, the better, Alex is desperate to understand what went wrong. This brings them into contact with Marcus, Andrew’s partner, which forces Ruth and Alex come to know their son in a way they never had before.
Will Swenson grew up in the Mormon faith himself and is well aware of the pressures this can cause, and so he’s well positioned to bring this story to the screen. He and his wife, five time Tony winner Audra MacDonald, were recently honoured by PFLAG for their efforts to promote marriage equality with the 2012 Straight for Equality in Entertainment Award.
There’s a great team already put together for the movie, with plans already in place to shoot the film towards the end of 2013. While most of the production budget is already in place, that cash won’t be available until near the time of production, and so they’re looking for $65,000 to get them to that point. And that’s where you can help. You can find out more over at Kickstarter. And as always with this sort of crowd-sourcing campaign, various different rewards are available depending on how much you give.
Will Swenson and Audra Mcdonald
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