Santa Claus is Coming Out ...thanks to Jeffrey Soloman

November 25, 2014

Santa Claus is Coming Out ...thanks to Jeffrey Soloman

Jeffrey Solomon in Santa Claus is Coming Out Photo by Bree Michael Warner

The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
Peter Drucker

Santa Claus announces that he's been living a lie and that Mrs. Claus is actually just an actress in the off-Broadway smash hit The Santa Closet (originally titled Santa Claus Is Coming Out). Award-winning solo performer Jeffrey Solomon (Mother/Son) inhabits various characters at the center of "Santa-Gate," the world-wide scandal that ensues in the wake of Saint Nick's revelation. Using one of our most treasured icons, Solomon explores the cultural divide and asks what the Christmas spirit is really about. The New York Times called the show "a delightful surprise."

Jeffrey Soloman says he does what he does by default. He can't imagine a life of digging ditches or plumbing. Even as a child, he was creating a world of "let's pretend" and making up stories. He just had fun doing that and carried it forward into his adulthood. Not only did he desire to keep on doing it, he needed to keep on doing it. He has a gift of flair and a love of puppets that was handed down by his mom and dad. He went to NYU and had a number of great experiences in off off Broadway theatre in the early to mid eighties.It was around that time that he got involved with The CityKids Foundation.
They are a combination rep and theatre company and youth group. They use theatre as a tool to address important social issues. CityKids’ innovative programming and projects have been in the forefront in the fields of positive youth development and social emotional learning for the past three decades; providing

opportunities for personal growth and artistic expression, they help young people channel that growth into substantial social change.

It was really exciting for Jeffrey to be able to write for them and take his acting as well into the high schools in 1988. He was even able to appear on the Donahue show. They were deluged with letters from gay kids all over America and the rest of the world. He was able to experience first hand the power of theatre and how it touches lives and makes people think.
This journey began in earnest for Jeffrey in 1986.
What does Jeffrey do when he wants a little "nonsense" in his life? He is a parent now. He and his husband adopted a baby boy two years ago. Pretty much all of Jeffrey's nonsense and silliness is directed towards him.
What does Jeffrey desire more than anything? Are you listening Santa?

in Mother/Son

He desires more people to have access and be exposed to his work. That is what most artists want. He desires to be a good parent. He is trying!
Santa Claus Is Coming Out, now called The Santa Closet has already had quite a history going back to 2001. Jeffrey's other solo play, Mother Son, was about his "coming out" journey with his mom.It premiered in New York and then went on to Provincetown.

It was a hit and seen by a lot of people. It would go on to Chicago and play all over the country. What he loved beyond the fact that many people saw it, was the fact that many desired to use the play as a tool in communities to talk about LGBT issues and prejudice and diversity and coming out issues. It went to high schools and colleges and it was produced by P-Flag and LGBT youth groups. Jeffrey was inspired by what was being done by all the work that was being done in schools to speak honestly with these issues. When we were in school, this simply was not done. If it was mentioned at all, it wasn't in a very nice way.

It was in derogatory words such as use of the word, "faggot". One of Jeffrey's teachers even went as far to say that the idea of homosexuality made him sick. That brought about a lot of pain and shame.
After Mother Son started being used as a teaching tool, Jeffrey started doing research on those educators and teachers who were addressing these issues in schools in a positive way. With the positives, there were also negatives. There was a conservative backlash. As a result, there were a number of stories that inspired The Santa Closet (then called Santa Claus Is Coming Out). One thing that started happening was that teachers started coming out to kids. As a result, teachers started answering kids' questions honestly. Two teachers that come

to mind were in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Another thing that was taking place at this time was Oregon's Measure Nine in 1992, concerning gay rights and public education, that drew widespread national attention.This measure would have made it illegal to discuss homosexuality in schools. The idea was that even discussing these issues was condoning homosexuality and that the gay agenda was to recruit and normalize everything so that kids will think it is great and jump on the bandwagon and therefore will be gay by having that conversation. The last point of all of this is the Gay straight alliance of Orange County.
A principal criticized for her handling of the Orange County Schools’ first middle-school gay-straight alliance eventually resigned. She tried to disband all youth clubs rather than allowing the Gay straight alliance to meet. Jeffrey went there to interview those that were involved. There was an organization called Parental Rights USA. They were leading the charge against the "gay movement".

Jeffrey interviewed the woman who ran this organization. She was actually the one who led Jeffrey to the idea of The Santa Closet. When she was not busy fighting the "gay agenda" or attending S and M orgies "under cover", actually with her press credentials. She went to the March in Washington in 1983. She was also producing children's programming for PBS.
Jeffrey began to question why SHE would stand on the side of "wholesomeness" and "good values." Why couldn't Santa be "one of us"? What would happen if Santa if he was revealed to be a gay man? How would the world react? Would it be with the same craziness that Jeffrey saw with some of the elementary school teachers? Would it still be totally inappropriate for kids? Does it automatically become about sex? The head of the Parental Rights organization really got Jeffrey to thinking about how the world would react to a gay Santa Claus. Many gay teachers have had to live in the shadows. The Secret Life of Santa Claus or The Santa Claus is presented as a documentary.
Audiences in New York can catch this tonight (November 25th) and

December 10th at Stage 72 at The Triad.
Tonight's show is a benefit for P-Flag of NYC. December 10th is a benefit for Truth Wins Out. There are also performances December 13th and 14th in Peekskill. Then, Jeffrey is off to Los Angeles for December 18th, 19th, and 21st.
Jeffrey has also been working on a screenplay version of this.
As mentioned earlier, the play is written as a documentary. It lends itself well to a transfer along the lines of This is Spinal Tap.
Jeffrey is absolutely sure that he is doing EXACTLY what he should be doing. What else would he be doing? Some people question their life choices. Not Jeffrey! That is one area of his life in which there are no doubts.
Jeffrey hopes that theatre will keep evolving. Live theatre does have its rightful place. It fits right in with TV, radio, and now, the internet. Although, he hates to use the term "educational tool", it can be, and he would love to see theatre have an even further outreach. It can become a larger part of community discussions.

The crux of The Santa Closet comes from a little boy asking Santa for a doll. Because Santa is a "closet case" in the context of this play, he is panicked by the request and says, "no". Then, the boy asks for a Ken doll or as he is called in the play "Dream date Norman." That request is also denied. The kid writes back saying, "I guess there is no Santa." That pierces Santa's soul which brings about his coming out. The play is really about this boy, Gary, and the invisibility of people like him.
Jeffrey has been told that this show works on two levels. On the one hand, it is satire. It is a mocumentary like This Is Spinal Tap or Best in Show.

It works on that level ...just for laughs. That being said, it really does pull at the heart strings like all those Christmas specials we have come to love like Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Joe Brancato is the director and "the perfect partner on this play." He has a heart of gold. Joe stumbled upon this play and Jeffrey by "accident".He stumbled on the title of Santa Claus is Coming Out on a website dealing with theatre in San Diego where Jeffrey was doing the show at the time in 2002. Joe was preparing to do a show in New York and looked Jeffrey up and said, "If you're ever in New York, we should get together for coffee sometime."

Joe though that Jeffrey was in California. They met to discuss the play. Joe loved it, but had some ideas about changing certain aspects of the story. One in particular has to do with Santa's agent, Stanley Green aka "the little Jew who saved Christmas." He is sort of a guide, in the same way that the Fred Astaire character is in Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Joe guided Jeffrey through rewrites and presented the revamped show at Penguin Rep in Stony Point. Joe put together the coalition of people who brought this show to Theatre Row in 2009.
Jeffrey worked pretty intensely with Joe from 2006 to the off-Broadway premier in 2009. It eventually went to The Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, The Celebration in LA, and last year at The Eureka in San Francisco. During that time, Joe and

Joe Brancato

Jeffrey were not involved. However, both Joe and Jeffrey desired to get back together to do, not necessarily a "smaller" version of the show, but one that is a little bit more "stripped down" and focuses on the ACTING of the characters and not so much on the production elements. They went back into rehearsals for the piece that will premier tonight.
This journey started for Jeffrey in 2000. In 2006, it went through major changes. Jeffrey first wondered if it was obsolete in terms of the gay issues being addressed and the way we talk about them with kids. In other words, is this even necessary? Jeffrey had to really consider that. There is still a lot of anxiety in the country about dealing with these issues, especially when talking with kids as far as gay vs. straight relationships.
Jeffrey and his, now, husband have been together for twenty one years. They were married in Massachusetts in 2008.
There have also been two productions without Jeffrey as star. One was in San Antonio Texas and one is being done this season in Buffalo.

Jeffrey's advice for anyone else doing this play is very simple. Although the characters are big and are involved in broad silly situations, Jeffrey would hate to see them treated as such. Any actor has to take on this world and there is no question that these characters are "real". Santa Claus is never seen in this play. We are introduced to those that surrounded him and bring this story to life. There are so many stories and images of Santa, that Jeffrey desires the audience to project their own thoughts on to how we perceive him.
In 2009, GLSEN presented the play as a benefit and Focus on the Family picked up on it.

Candi Cushman

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family wrote a blog condemning the play saying that Jeffrey was a homosexual activist bent on perverting the meaning of Christmas and the innocence of children. Bill O'Reilly picked up on this and blogged about it as well. Words were stolen from one of the characters in the script, Mary Ellen Banfield, housewife-activist and president of FAGA (Families Against the Gay Agenda), a character and organization that is fighting Santa Claus. It was so silly that life was echoing art so completely. People were spouting lines from a play they never saw almost verbatim.
Order tickets HERE for the New York performances.

When a little boy’s gender atypical gift request to the North Pole is denied, a series of heart-felt letters from the child nudge Santa Claus out of the closet, and into the culture wars. The play’s Off Broadway run was heralded as “Hilarious” and “Brilliant” by Broadway World and Out Magazine. The New York Times raved: “A Delightful Surprise! … This isn’t a clumsy parody, but a sensitive, imaginative tale that really is about a boy’s realization that he is different. Mr. Solomon portrays an amazing range of characters, all of them beautifully.” A theatrical documentarian in the mold of Anna Deveare Smith and the Laramie Project, Mr. Solomon purports to have interviewed, and portrays, all of the key players in the scandal that has come to be known as ‘Santa-Gate’.

Thank to ALL mentioned in this blog for the gifts you have given to the world and continue to give!

With grateful XOXOXs ,