Reading Pride Celebration

A Screening of an Upcoming PBS Documentary
OUT IN THE SILENCE
A Documentary Film by Joe Wilson & Dean Hamer
AN EVENING OF GLBTQIA SOLIDARITY

Rainbow Players Theater Co. will be hosting a screening of the upcoming PBS documentary, OUT IN THE SILENCE, on Friday, October 2 at 8 pm at the Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley, 930 North 4th Street, Allentown, PA 18102. OUT IN THE SILENCE is an uplifting documentary about courageous local residents confronting homophobia in their conservative small town in the hills of western Pennsylvania. Admission cost is $15 and $8 for students & senior citizens. Proceeds will benefit the Rainbow Players Theater Co., MCCLV’s Freedom to Marry Initiative, and PA Diversity Network. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A panel with filmmakers Joe Wilson & Dean Hamer, PA Senator Daylin Leach (author of the Bill Providing For Full, Equal Marriage Rights to Pennsylvania's Same-Sex Couples), Chairman of the PA Human Relations Commission Stephen A. Glassman, Jake Kaskey of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, & PA Diversity Network's Liz Bradbury and Adrian Shanker.

OUT IN THE SILENCE is a documentary film and social action campaign aimed at promoting increased visibility and fairness and equality for GLBTQ people in rural and small town America. Filmmaker Joe Wilson travels back to his roots in this autobiographical documentary. Growing up in the small town of Oil City, Pa., Wilson remained closeted, but after college, Peace Corps and settling in Washington, D.C., he came out and wed Dean Hamer (the film's co-director). After publishing his marriage announcement in Oil City's newspaper, Joe received a torrent of negative, bigoted letters — and one he didn't expect. Kathy Springer wrote that her 16-year-old son, CJ, had recently come out and was being tortured daily by his classmates. Seeing a community in need, Wilson and Hamer, with camera in hands, headed north to see what they could do. Between interviewing ministers, rebuilding cars, restoring old theaters and battling both the school board and the antagonistic American Family Association (all while making a documentary about it), the newfound friends bring about the change that Oil City needed so badly. A poignant, personal and engrossing story.

This is an opportunity for the GLBTQIA community and community-at-large to publicly stand together in a show of solidarity, and hear about the strides we are making towards GLBTQIA rights, as well as the steps that we can continue to make together.

For more information, contact Dean Hiatt, Artistic Director, at rainbow.players@mcclv.org, or 718-664-3713. You can also find out more about the documentary at http://outinthesilence.com.