The cast of the Broadway-bound musical
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is reaching out to troubled gay
teens in an It Gets Better video.
The movie-turned-tuner, which will have
its Broadway premiere in March after a brief stop in Toronto, follows
three drag queens on a road trip through the Australian Outback.
In the video, Nick Adams, who plays the
part of Adam/Felicia, says he grew up “feeling very frightened and
alone because I was a young gay boy.”
After confessing that it's difficult to
talk about his experience, Will Swenson (Tick/Mitzi) says he was
bullied as kid: “I was sometimes physically assaulted – I had to
fight my way out of things; I always won.” Swenson says the
tormenting drove him to thoughts of suicide.
Being gay didn't trouble Tony Sheldon
(Bernadette) as a child – “Everything was going to be lovely” –
but the suicide of his father when Sheldon was 10 “broke” him and
his mother. (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
The
It Gets Better Project is the brainchild of sex advice columnist
and activist Dan Savage, who launched the project by uploading a
video on YouTube. The project urges gay teens considering suicide to
get help.
Other celebrities and high-profile
politicians who have created videos include President
Obama, Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, New
York Governor David Paterson, Fort
Worth Councilman Joel Burns, rocker
Adam Lambert and actor Neil
Patrick Harris.