Theater director Jack Hofsiss died this week at the age of 65. In addition to seeing a lot of his work onstage (most memorably the original Broadway production of The Elephant Man and Paul Rudnick’s first play in New York, Poor Little Lambs), I had the pleasure of interviewing him for The Advocate in 2000, 15 years after the diving accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The occasion for the interview was his production of a play called Avow, which dealt with the subject of gay marriage. Hofsiss had some very interesting things to say about the subject, coming from his background being taught by Jesuits in high school.
“I learned from the Jesuits not just to accept what is given to you but to think about it,” he said. “There was a sense of questioning. They shared the fact that ultimately your relationship to God is your own thing, that you can be gay and have a relationship with the God of the Catholic Church. That’s one of the big issues in this play, the refusal of these guys to take second-class citizenship. Instead of saying, ‘My love precludes me from being a Catholic,’ to say ‘My love enables me to be a Catholic. My love is love. Love is God. God is love.’ That’s the journey.”
You can read the complete text of my article online here. Let me know what you think.
another eye opens 
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