Jayne Luke | Photo credit: Rick Pollock

Jayne Luke has appeared in Plan-B’s ANIMAL FARM, two SLAMs and FACING EAST.

On June 8, 2006 I wrote in my journal: “I read a beautiful play by Carol Lynn Pearson…FACING EAST. I cried as I read it. Plan-B is producing it. I wonder if I am the right person to play that role?”

I had no idea how those words would change my life.

The play moved me deeply because it reminded me of the extraordinary young men I had gone to BYU with and those who worked for me at the Sundance Summer Theatre in the 1980′s. These young men were talented and kind and fun-loving and good looking…and all of them were in deep pain because they couldn’t justify who they really were with what their church expected them to be.

So I auditioned for the play and the gods (and Jerry Rapier) gave me the part. And thus began one of the most amazing journeys of my life.

From the first day of rehearsal it was clear this was not going to be an ordinary experience. Speaking Carol Lynn’s words – working with the cast, staff and crew – Jerry directing and guiding always with the admonition “don’t be indulgent, don’t be maudlin.” I began to realize that my job was to be the voice for the mothers of Mormondom who absolutely believed that loving their faith was the only way to save their children. I’m not a mother…I’m not a Mormon, although I was born into the LDS religion. But I needed to play this role without judging the character.

As we moved closer to the opening of the play in November of 2006, media interest became very intense. I will never forget the evening we went to the Salt Lake Cemetery to take publicity pictures. I was dressed in the black suit that Jerry had picked out for me at Nordstrom (he wouldn’t let me look at the price tag, but I suspected it cost more than all the clothes in my closet). I was wearing a beautifully styled wig that transformed me into an upper class, well-dressed perfectionist.

Just as we were finishing the photo shoot the most exquisite rainbow appeared over the mountains to the east. It was a complete rainbow…all the colors fully developed. We stared at it in the stillness of the evening. Something…or maybe even Someone…seemed to be saying: “This is right.”
Plan-B opened the show in the Black Box Theater at the Rose Wagner. Charles Lynn Frost was Alex, Jay Perry was Marcus, I was Ruth, and the open grave, so starkly designed by Randy Rasmussen, was the fourth character – the unspoken presence of Andrew, our son who had committed suicide. But it was clear to me that there was a fifth character there – perhaps the most important one of all. Each member of those audiences brought their own story, either of themselves or someone they loved, and each one of them became a strong, silent participant in our show.

The stories people shared in the talkbacks after the show in SLC (in November 2006 and April 2007) were so moving. People said their lives were changed because of seeing the show. My life was changed, too. It didn’t change because of what the play was about, although I cared deeply about people who were personally affected. It changed because Jerry Rapier and Bruce Bastian provided us the opportunity to do the show off-Broadway in New York City.

I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. We flew to NYC and were met by a white limo, complete with champagne, that took us into the city. I couldn’t stop giggling (and it wasn’t the champagne). I felt like Dorothy and I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I lived in NYC for five years in the 1970′s. It was dirty and dangerous and I was NOT a success in show business. I wasn’t healthy – physically or emotionally. But it was a very important time in my life. I look back now and realize that I went there believing I wanted to be an Actress in New York City. I was twenty-four going on fourteen and it is amazing that I lived through it. What happened to me at that time had very little to do with my career in show business and everything to do with who I became as a woman later in life.

But now I was back in the city, staying in a lovely apartment, riding the subway, walking, walking, walking all the streets that were so familiar to me, rehearsing and performing in a wonderful play with wonderful people. I loved riding the subway to the Atlantic Stage 2 theater on West 16th Street. It was a beautifully designed theater that was seven stories underground so there was no subway or traffic noise to interrupt the play. The acoustics were so amazing Jerry gave me a note that I was breathing too loudly backstage.

The audiences were interested in the play. The audiences in SLC had been so emotional. In NYC there were some who identified with the characters, but many more who were fascinated by the family Carol Lynn had created, based on many sons, daughters, fathers and mothers who had confided in her. During one performance in a particularly quiet moment, just after my character of Ruth had quoted some particularly harsh doctrine about how gay people are judged in the hereafter, a woman in the audience exclaimed “My God!” Nobody laughed, nothing else was said and the play continued uninterrupted. There was no BOOK OF MORMON musical yet. People were enthralled, amazed and sometimes dismayed by the passion of the LDS religion.

I didn’t read the reviews although I heard they were good. I just wanted to experience each moment of this opportunity without being influenced by what might have been written because it was healing a deep dark hole in me. I had always considered my 1970′s New York time trying to break into show business as a failure. I returned to SLC in 1980 knowing that I didn’t want to live in NYC anymore and I created and found good work in the theatre close to the mountains that are such a part of me. Even though I knew I had made the right choice, there was always a quietly nagging little voice in the back of my mind that said: “You weren’t good enough.”

On closing night of the off-Broadway run of FACING EAST, I made my exit and stood backstage listening to Jay and Charles finish the play. My whole body was filled with exquisite joy. In that wonderful theater…as quiet and sacred as any temple…I knew…at last…I was enough.