Gay coming-of-age play premieres in Wilton Manors theater – South Florida Sun Sentinel

Yes, “Educating Asher” has gay themes.

But the play getting a world premiere at Fort Lauderdale’s Empire Stage from July 29 to Aug. 14 will resonate with all kinds of audiences, according to its playwright, Eytan Deray.

“I think people who aren’t even gay can relate to it,” says the actor/cabaret performer from Wilton Manors. “I think in this case my main character happens to be gay, but I wanted to tell a story that goes so far beyond sexual orientation.”

“Educating Asher” is about a gay millennial who learns to “embrace life and experience grief fully and satisfyingly with conversations with his teacher’s ghost,” he says.

“Everyone has had someone in their life who passed away and they couldn’t say what they wanted to say. We always say that stuff in our head, you know? But if their ghost was right in front of you, what would you say? There’s a lot of things that people would want to say. It’s not just me, though I am a giant ball of Jewish neurosis.”

A South Florida native, Deray has written 11 plays and appeared on several regional stages working with local theater troupes such as Slow Burn Theatre Company, Infinite Abyss and Ronnie Larsen Presents.

He is also a cabaret artist, regularly performing at Wilton Manors hotspots including Pub on the Drive, Matty’s Wilton Park and Bona Italian Restaurant — that is, when he’s not working as a host at Rosie’s Bar & Grill.

“I’ve been in musical theater and singing since I was 5 and acting since 11,” Deray recalls. “I’ve been professionally writing since I was 18.”

Seth Trucks, who signed on to direct the production at Empire Stage, has worked on a number of shows with Deray.

“He leaves more of his heart on the stage each night than just about any performer I know,” he says. “So the prospect of helping him work on a project that is so deeply personal to him was too great of an opportunity to pass up. The fact that it’s also such a well-written play is icing on the cake for me.”

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Deray explains that what Truck is referring to when the director says “a project that is so deeply personal to him” is the focus in “Educating Asher” on mental health.

“Mental health is very important to me. I didn’t diagnose for depression until I was 23 or 24, [even though] I probably had it when I was younger, 18 or 19, and still coming out of the closet,” he says. “Also, growing up as ostracized as I was with a lot of bullying for being heavy and gay, the depression had always been there but then it really bubbled up in my late teens. There still is a lot of stigma against mental health. I like to approach it with as little judgment as possible, lay it out and be frank … and as real as possible.”

The idea for “Educating Asher” came to Deray while he was getting his bachelor’s degree at Florida Atlantic University from 2015-2017, after earning his associate degree at Broward College. It was there on campus that a headline from a local newspaper in a kiosk caught his attention.

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“The South Florida Gay News was there and there was a teacher of mine from back in middle school who I really adored and he was on the front cover, and the headline said ‘The passing of my partner,’ “ Deray explains. “It had been a long time since I had seen him, like five years. I began to wonder why we lost touch … and then he dies of dementia at 57 years old. I didn’t know how to embrace my grief or discuss it with people.

“At first it was a monologue, a diary entry. Then I thought, wait a minute, there’s a character here. There is something I have to say here about grief and the way we honor our heroes growing up and our mentors. He was a very wonderful person. There was a lot of grief and a lot of happy tears writing it.”

After finishing the play, there were two readings, one in 2020, just before the pandemic shut everything down and another just before Thanksgiving in 2021.

“I think I’m pretty lucky with the friends I’ve made in the theater community. I have a great little circle of people I can hand a script to and say, ‘Tell me what you think.’ It just clicked with them. I think they see how much of myself I poured in this script, and they don’t take any of that for granted.”

Deray also thinks that the story he tells in “Educating Asher” stands out for another reason.

“I wrote a play where this character’s coming out is NOT their conflict,” he says. “That is a topic I have a lot of respect for, but I was [committed] in not making coming out Asher’s problem and making it, instead, about grief … with this character who just happens to be gay. That is more interesting to me. And there’s not so much stigma and taboo with gay characters anymore.”

Having said that, he does feel it was important to have gay representation. So much so, that after some hesitation, he agreed to play the title role himself.

“My director Seth Trucks, when we did the reading, said … ‘All I’m hearing in the dialogue is your voice. If Lin-Manuel Miranda does it, why can’t you?’ …

“I really hope this show clicks with people. I hope it touches them in a certain way. But I also hope that it does something for gay representation it in the community … I would like this play to give people a little hope, someone who looks like me — a little chubbier, maybe a little gawky and every other type of gay man in the LGBT community — that they have a story to tell. And I really hope that more diversity in stories happens after ‘[Educating] Asher’ premieres.”

WHAT: “Educating Asher”

WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays, from July 29-Aug. 14

WHERE: Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale

COST: $25

INFORMATION: 954-678-1496; EmpireStage.com or Eventbrite.com

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