A workshop reading of a new play based on “Our Family Outing” will be presented Friday, Oct. 12, at 8 p.m. in Messenger Auditorium in the Darbeth Fine Arts Center.  The play, which is being adapted to the stage by Roger Moon, is based on “a memoir of coming out and through” written by 1983 Southwestern College graduate Joe Cobb and by Leigh Anne Taylor.

According to Moon, the drama is true to Cobb and Taylor’s memoir about their experience, told in the voices of the authors.

“After Joe’s graduation from Southwestern College, Joe and Leigh Anne met in seminary at SMU (Southern Methodist University), fell in love, got married and had two children,” Moon says. “They both moved into ministry successful careers, he as a pastor, and she in music ministry.” 

In 1987, 13 years after their marriage (while Joe was serving as an associate pastor of a major metropolitan church and Leigh Anne as a music minister) Joe realized that he had been denying his sexuality.  Joe and Leigh Anne accepted his homosexuality, ultimately divorced, and made a new covenant “to speak and act in loving ways toward one another, especially in front of the children, and for the sake of the children,” Moon explains.

Moon has written the play to be read by two actors portraying Cobb and Taylor.  Southwestern College alumni Randy Juden ’81 and Keri (Alexander) Crask ’82 have been chosen by Cobb and Moon to play the roles of Joe and Leigh Anne. 

“A script needs a tryout,” Moon says, “and that is what we are doing.  It is necessary for a playwright to see a script on stage in a reading as a play develops.   An adaptation of a book to a play also necessitates the chance for the book writers to see a script in development so that they can assess whether they feel the script is true to the book.”

A book signing will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Darbeth Fine Arts Building, so that the audience can meet and greet the authors, buy books and have them signed.  Moon is also hoping to receive feedback in the response, question and answer segment that will conclude the evening.

Admission cost will be $10 for adults and $5 for students.  All proceeds will go toward the theatre tech center classroom.