Free It Gets Better by Dan Savage Page A

choreography for Lady Gaga on the weekends.

IT GETS BETTER BROADWAY
    by Members of the Broadway and New York Theater Community
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    Michael Arnold ( Billy Elliot ): I grew up in a community where the only thing that mattered was sports, and anything else and everything else was gay. If you did anything else, you were a faggot. So when I started taking dance classes to improve my hockey game, I was a faggot.
    I was bullied in high school, I was ridiculed, and I was made fun of. The thing that hurt the worst was that all the adults who were there to protect me . . . didn’t protect me. Nobody stepped in.
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    J. R. Bruno ( West Side Story ): When I was getting changed for gym class one day, a bunch of kids stole my wallet and my watch and my glasses and my clothes. And the principal couldn’t do anything about it because there was no proof.
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    Derek St. Pierre ( Rock of Ages ): I was called names all the time and bullied. People called me “faggot.”
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    Tim McGarrigal ( High School Musical ): I remember distinctly having other kids call me “faggot” and “gay” and “homo.” I didn’t even know what that meant at the time but gradually I started feeling more and more isolated.
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    Brad Bradley ( Billy Elliot, Spamalot, Annie Get Your Gun ): Once I started taking ballet and wearing ballet tights, I was introduced to the word faggot. I was told I would make a really pretty girl if I wasn’t a girl already, and my father even once referred to me as the “Sugar Plum Fairy.”
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    Danny McNie ( Miss Saigon ): I was thrown against a fence and had my pants pulled down, just to prove to that group of guys—boys—that I was a boy.
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    Tony Gonzalez ( Mamma Mia! ): One morning when I was fifteen years old, a freshman in high school, I came outside to the entire side of my house spray-painted with terribly profane pictures and words.
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    Chris Nichols (New York talent agent): I would show up to high school and my locker would be Super Glued shut. People would kick me, people would beat me up.
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    Jeremy Leiner ( Bombay Dreams and New York talent agent): This kid came up and pointed at me, stopping with his crowd, and said, “Fag.” And they all just laughed and walked away. I remember how humiliated I felt; I wanted to just crawl in a hole and hide.
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    Raymond J. Lee ( Mamma Mia! ): Because of all this pressure from my parents, from my Christian friends, I actually attempted to take my life.
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    J. B. Wing ( High Fidelity ): I tried to take my own life. And I can’t tell you how much I thank God that I was not successful in that attempt.
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    Corey West ( South Pacific ): I remember hearing so much in school and in church about praying. That if I just prayed, it would go away. So at night I would pray so hard, and I would cry, just asking for these feelings to go away.
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    Jose Llana ( Spelling Bee , The King and I , Rent ): I’m from a Filipino Catholic background. I was born in the Philippines and moved to the States when I was really young. At a certain point, as a kid, I knew I was gay but I didn’t know how to tell my parents. As a Catholic, there were times I felt like I was the biggest failure to my family, my country, and my faith.
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    Ben Franklin: I grew up Southern Baptist, deeply immersed in my religious background, and as a young gay man, I was terrified. Fear was my bully. I was afraid I was going to lose my religion, my family, everything that I held dear to me. It ate me up inside.
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    Alex Quiroga ( Wicked ): It’s a really different time, and I know that it’s hard. And I am sure that you’re sick of hearing everybody say, “I know how you feel. It gets better.” And we don’t really know how you feel because we’re not you. But if you are feeling hopeless and you are thinking about doing something drastic, maybe hurting yourself or even suicide,