TACOMA, Wash. – Peterson Toscano, playwright, actor, comedian, and gay activist, will be performing his play, Transfigurations: Transgressing Gender in the Bible, on Wednesday, March 31, at University of Puget Sound. The one-person play explores the lives of transgender individuals using stories from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures in a controversial performance that has been described as funny, moving, and insightful by audiences on three continents. The event begins at 7 p.m. in Schneebeck Concert Hall and coincides with International Day of Transgender Visibility. Tickets for Puget Sound staff, students, and faculty are free. Tickets for community members are $5.

The globe-trotting Toscano uses comedy and storytelling to address social justice concerns. As a young man, impelled in part by his Christian beliefs, he rejected his same-sex orientation and spent 17 years and more than $30,000 attempting to change and suppress his sexual identity. He eventually came out as a gay man in 1999. Believing that gay reparative therapy was damaging to his own life, Toscano has since sought to raise public awareness about the harm that can come from trying to change one’s sexuality and gender differences. Since 2003 he has traveled in North America, Europe, and Africa performing and writing plays that explore sexism, racism, the environment, violence, and gender.

Transfigurations: Transgressing Gender in the Bible draws on inspiration from interviews with transgender and genderqueer individuals to weave a series of tales based on well-known Bible stories. In telling his stories Toscano uses an array of characters with an array of genders. 

“Transfigurations had me transfixed in my seat,” said Ellen Lewis, a psychiatrist quoted on Toscano’s Web site. “We were transported from earliest Biblical times, through Peterson's brilliant, reflective, witty, and delicious artistry, into the very front row of human history. This play sets the stage well for us toward transcending sexual prejudice in the future.”

Toscano has appeared on television and radio programs including The Tyra Banks Show, The Montel Williams Show, Faith Under Fire, PBS Television’s In the Life,  Public Radio International’s To the Point, Connecticut Public Radio’s Where We Live, and BBC World Service’s Reporting Religion.

The evening is presented by Multicultural Student Services; the Office of Spirituality, Service, and Social Justice; and the Department of Religion. It is sponsored by the Catharine Gould Chism Fund. The Chism fund was established when Seattle businesswoman Catharine Gould Chism left $1.25 million to University of Puget Sound for an endowment to support the arts and humanities.

Tickets for the performance are available through the Info Center in Wheelock Student Center or by calling 253.879.3419 for credit card orders.

For directions and a map of the campus: www.pugetsound.edu/directions.xml

A press-quality photo of Peterson Toscano can be downloaded from: Press Photos - University of Puget Sound.

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