Adapted from his 2023 autobiography, ARE YOU KIDDING? A Life, author, actor, director and producer Bob May has distilled a new telling of his gay life and survival in the minimalist style of monologist Spalding Gray.
May describes his childhood in Republican Orange County, his school days and his awakening to his secret self, confused teen years of isolation in the 1960s, first loves, coming out amidst the foment and social unrest of the 1970s, the Vietnam draft lottery, draft resistance, jail and his resulting PTSD. Act Two follows his mature work life and twin careers in business and the arts, later loves, his HIV diagnosis, depression and addictions, recovery, and finally a long eventful life into a happy retirement and old age. In other words: survival.
It is a moving, dramatic, picaresque true story of isolation and fear, acceptance, struggle, romance, achievement and hope, told with May's characteristic humor and optimism.