A Mormon boy’s own story

Steven Fales solo performance looks back on a tumultuous life.

By Joe Brown

Thursday, April 22, 2010 | 12:05 a.m.

In his solo performance Confessions of a Mormon Boy, playwright/actor Steven Fales looks back on an eventful, even tumultuous life, tracing his trajectory from Eagle Scout boyhood in Utah to high-priced call boy in Manhattan. Stops in between include excommunication from the church, marriage, children, divorce, "reparative therapy," prostitution, meth addiction — and the loss of his Donny Osmond smile.

There's more than enough drama there to fuel several nighttime soaps on the CW, but Fales, who grew up in Las Vegas and graduated from Clark High School, can laugh about it now — he has called himself the "Brokeback Mormon" and "Ethel Mormon."

Fales, 40, appears semi-nude in the show, and in his latest play, Mormon-American Princess, he pokes fun at his own narcissism. "God has seen me through excommunication, divorce, prostitution, and drugs," he says. "Now we're working on narcissism, and it's not going well."

Fales says he wrote the play — directed by Jack Hofsiss, who won a Tony Award for the Broadway staging of The Elephant Man — to help end spiritual violence against gays and lesbians in churches, synagogues and mosques. Partial proceeds from opening night — which features a Q&A with Fales — will benefit the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada.

— Originally published in Las Vegas Weekly