Like, why does one person have to do that show? And that has to be in the piece-otherwise it just seems like showing off!” “One of the things for me has always been to keep looking for the reason it has to be a solo show. It was something I knew how to do and I loved doing it.” So I thought, I’ve done these solo shows before. There was a way people were really thinking about this stuff and didn’t know how to talk about it in public. “I felt like there was an opportunity to say some things to an adult audience that I had already said to a young adult audience, something more complex and maybe a little darker. They talk about the experience of knowing the kid as it becomes clearer and clearer what happened to him. Really, the play is about how we’re all connected to one another, the effect of one person’s life on many other people. I play all the people in the town to whom this boy was connected. The play is about trying to figure out what happened to him and why. “It’s the story of a Jersey Shore town where a 14-year-old boy disappeared. The actor-writer-activist tells Backstage readers how the story evolved, and gives valuable advice on how to develop successful solo theater. His critically acclaimed solo show adaptation, “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey,” transferred Off-Broadway to the Westside Theatre on July 11. 'This book will encourage you to be exactly who you are.After his Academy Award-winning short “Trevor” inspired the founding of the Trevor Project in 1998, actor-writer James Lecesne wrote “Absolute Brightness,” a young adult novel about a 14-year-old boy New Jersey boy who goes missing. This novel by James Lecesne, the cofounder of The Trevor Project, inspired the critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey. Phoebe, her family, and her community fight to understand what happened, and to make sense of why someone might want to extinguish the beautiful absolute brightness that was Leonard Pelkey. He sees people not as they are, but as they hope to be. When he comes to live with Phoebe's family, he upsets the delicate balance of their lives. Leonard is an orphan, a cousin who Phoebe never knew she had. But everything changes when Leonard arrives. She helps her mom out with her hair salon, she goes to school, and she envies her perfect older sister. Phoebe's life in Neptune, New Jersey, is somewhat unremarkable.

'This complex, illuminating and beautiful book reminds us we have to look for the light even in the darkest corners.' -Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret From Academy Award-winning writer, actor, and activist in the LGBTQ community comes a groundbreaking story about love, prejudice, and being yourself.

Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne