Running June 20 to June 25 at Forestburgh Playhouse, The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey is as engaging as it is necessary: a celebratory look at one young outsider’s life, Celeste Lecesne’s one-person show honors the lives of queer youth, and has been doing so since the Obama era. In the years since, the work has only become increasingly urgent.
The play is the story of Leonard Pelkey, a tenaciously optimistic and flamboyant fourteen-year-old boy who goes missing. A luminous force of nature whose magic is only truly felt once he is gone, Leonard becomes an unexpected inspiration as the town’s citizens question how they live, who they love, and what they leave behind. Below, The Broadway Blog speaks to the playwright, who is a co-founder of The Trevor Project and also doubles as the very busy actor in this enthralling and moving one-person show.
The Broadway Blog: This show came to Off-Broadway in New York back in 2015. How has the show evolved since then?
Celeste Lecesne: I think the more relevant question would be: How has the world changed/evolved since then? And I’d answer that by pointing out the huge shift that’s occurred since 2015. Despite the current mental health crisis and the worrying spike in self harm and suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ youth, despite the fact that lawmakers are working overtime to disappear and silence, queer youth, this generation of young people are living lives of quiet determination and ushering in a new world. As a result there are many more young people like Leonard Pelkey in the world, which is to say that these days many more young people are unabashedly being themselves. This is certainly a good thing for everyone.
I’ve been fortunate in my life to have worked with queer youth for over 25 years now, but around 2016 I began to notice a change in the LGBTQIA+ youth themselves. They were building a network of connections, finding one another online (as well as in person), offering one another encouragement, and redefining what it meant to be queer. They were listening to their bodies and their hearts while deciding for themselves who they were. Never has it been more necessary for queer youth to know that they are safe, seen and celebrated, and the play speaks to that need. And makes it clear what can happen when that need isn’t met.
3. The show feels increasingly topical; can you discuss what that has meant to you, as an artist.
I think each of us knows the pain of having to dim down certain parts of ourselves in order to fit in, to belong, to be accepted by society. I know for me the realization happened when I was about 12 years old. I understood all too well that I would not be able to live as my fully flamboyant self without risking serious consequences. And so I toned things down. I lost the lisp. I tamed my hands and hips. I forced myself to become less obvious about who I was. Bringing Leonard Pelkey to life was my way of rescuing that absolutely bright part of my self and setting him in the light so that everyone could fully appreciate who he was. The fact that he is the one character who doesn’t actually appear in the play is a testament to his aliveness and a reminder of just how large a part certain people can play in the life of a community – even when they’re gone. As a storyteller, I’m always interested in telling stories that have the power to move people closer to an experience of their shared humanity. The fact that the show continues to be performed is proof that I did my job as an artist — I told the truth, and the truth lives on.
What are you most excited about in this new production?
Shortly before the show opened Off-Broadway, I sat in the darkened theater and watched my understudy do a run through. He was brilliant and funny and brought all the characters to life in his own special way. But for me it was a bit of an out-of-body experience. Years have gone by since I’ve performed the show, however, and I’m really looking forward to visiting with each of the characters in the play. It feels like going home for a holiday.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? Thank you!
The Forestburgh Playhouse is doing this opening night performance as a benefit for The Future Perfect Project, a non profit that dedicated to amplifying the voices of LGBTQIA+ Youth. In early 2017, I teamed up with singer-songwriter, Ryan Amador and together we set out to travel the country and find out if this generational shift was happening everywhere. We called ourselves The Future Perfect Project and devised a program that involved visiting high schools and LGBTQ+ Youth Centers and providing youth with a safe space to engage in creative writing and performance. When possible, we facilitated a live performance for a larger community audience in an effort to help queer, trans, and allied youth become more safe, seen, and celebrated.
It seems the world is never quite ready to know what a younger generation sees or feels, but change happens when young people begin to age-up and make the future happen. The Future Perfect Project is providing this new next generation of LGBT and Questioning young people, people like Leonard Pelkey, with the tools to tell us what they know, what they feel, and what they see: and what they see is a future in which every person gets to be perfectly and fully themselves.
