Portland Magazine
March 1, 2023
In October, University of Portland’s Theater Department presented a workshop reading of its first commissioned play, Claire Willett’s How Can I Keep from Singing?
Story by Jessica Murphy Moo
IN OCTOBER, UNIVERSITY of Portland’s Theater Department presented a workshop reading of its first commissioned play, Claire Willett’s How Can I Keep from Singing?
Willett hopes that it will eventually receive a fully staged production, and she hopes it’ll have a life specifically in Catholic spaces. Willett, an active Catholic and a proud member of the queer community, says she thought she’d processed some of the painful experiences she’d had within the Portland Catholic community 20 years ago, when a group of people who took issue with her queer identity tried (vocally though unsuccessfully) to get her fired from a youth ministry job she loved.
But when she started to write for this commission, some of those experiences started bubbling to the surface. She knew she didn’t want to write a coming out story and she didn’t want to write a story about overt trauma. She started writing about a character named Aidan, who is fired from directing a youth choir—a job he finds spiritually fulfilling in a parish he loves—because of his bisexual identity.
“I thought I’d processed it, but it was all coming right back up,” she said. Like Willett, Aidan had a supportive community, including loving and supportive parents who had been leaders in the parish. Aidan, too, thought of the church as a kind of a home. Aidan’s questions and evolution don’t have to do with himself or his faith. His questions have more to do with how he’ll respond to being thrown into the middle of a situation he didn’t choose. The nature of Aidan’s questions—along with his resolute self-acceptance—was intentional. Willett thought a lot about what she wanted young actors, some of whom were young queer Catholic actors, to hear from her, a person who has refused to be driven out of the Church, who has refused to accept that there were conditions to her belonging and to her faith.
The student actors we spoke with had a very positive experience working on the play. Giving feedback to a playwright was a new experience for them. And they all had wonderful things to say about UP’s talented and thoughtful theater professors. For many of the student actors, this was their first UP production. And for some who identify as queer, it was their first chance to play a queer-identifying role. “Some scenes hit so close to my heart,” one actor said. On the whole, the students said they felt supported throughout the production.
And ultimately Willett felt supported too. “It was one of the most joyful experiences of my life as a playwright.”
Of course, this lightness doesn’t erase the painful experiences that were the source material for the play. Amy Ongiri, professor of ethnic studies, offered a pre-show reflection on Psalm 137, noting the pain involved in being asked “to sing the Lord’s song” when one has simultaneously been exiled. “LGBTQ people of faith,” they noted, “are so often asked to come to church but not bring their whole authentic selves. We are asked to participate in our mind, body, and spirit, and even financially, but we are never acknowledged in our human fullness.”
It’s not a secret that members of the Catholic community, or the Church as a whole, have not been unified in support or acceptance of the LGBTQ community. In fact, the students and faculty were prepared for something to go awry, perhaps for a post-show discussion to get heated, even for a counterprotest of some kind. But what ended up happening in UP’s Mago Hunt Theater surprised them. People showed up in support.
Students showed up. UP faculty, staff, and clergy showed up. Willett’s siblings came. Three of the young people who’d been in her youth ministry group came. Her eighth-grade math teacher came. Members of her parish came. And Willett’s childhood parish priest, Fr. John Kerns, who happens to be a UP alum, also came. She hadn’t invited him. He sat behind her during the reading. He laughed at all the jokes. And after the show, she was happy to introduce him to her girlfriend.
JESSICA MURPHY MOO is editor of Portland magazine. Gratitude to Kunal Nayyar ’03, who supported the commission of this new work.
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