Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville

This blog is dedicated to the stories of Jacksonville, Florida's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community and their friends and family.

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The date is set for Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville’s fifth production! June 17th from 7 to 9 pm and June 18th from 1 to 3 and 7 to 9. Clear your calendars; you won’t want to miss it!

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Get ready for Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville 2016! It's our fifth anniversary show, and we want to know: What's your story?

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Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville 2015 Is Over!

*Reposted from our Facebook* Our wonderful community! We are a bit behind on making this post. As you can imagine, months upon months of hard work go into making our one annual production of Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville, and though we love every second of it, and we adore seeing the fruits of our labors reflected back at us from the eyes of our amazing audience, when it's over all we really want to do is sleep. So here we are, a week and a half after we wrapped, to tell you all what we should have told you the very next day, but for some very long and much-needed naps: THANK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!!! Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville 2015 covered a lot of ground that was new for our little project: we went to One Spark, we took the cover of Folio, spent about five glorious minutes on Channel 4's The Morning Show, we teased the show with a series of videos fully produced in-house, and so so much more. And all of that paid off! We had a record-breaking year in terms of money raised for JASMYN and PFLAG!!! So thank you all again. Thank you to everyone who supported us in the weeks and months leading up to the show, and to everyone who showed up to hold space for our monologuers. This is truly a transformative experience for all involved, and you can rest assured that everyone who you saw on our stage this year exited a different person than he or she entered. And while we could totally have done that without you, our audience, what we couldn't have done without you is help fund the PFLAG scholarship and JASMYN's efforts to provide support to our LGBTQ youth in need. You've all put some very positive energy out into the universe, and the universe appreciates it. :-) <3

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Obergefell and Opening Night

Today history was made, much in the same way it was made just a little over 48 years ago in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case. Today the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the 14th amendment to the United States constitution applies to people who love people of the same sex, just as it applies to people who love people of the opposite sex - that the laws of the land apply without regard to sexual orientation. Just as the Loving case didn't end the fight for civil rights for non-white people in one fell swoop, this extremely desirable decision in Obergefell v. Hodges does not mark the end of our fight. Some extremely brave people fought their way down a long and difficult road in front of district court judges, circuit court judges, and ultimately the Big 9, all to bring about positive change in the laws of our nation. But it is still incumbent upon us to keep fighting that fight in front of our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, our mothers, our neighbors, and our friends, and we do that by showing up, being ourselves, and remaining true to our stories.

Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville could not be happier, not only with this decision in and of itself, but also with the date on which it was delivered. Our mission has always been to give space to those within our community to show up, be themselves, and deliver their stories truthfully, and in as raw a form as they can handle. We were going to do that tonight regardless of whether this case was decided today, and regardless of whether that decision was one that gave us the legal validation we've been longing for. Today, Jim Obergefell showed us all how to change laws. Tonight we just hope to show a few of you how to change minds.

Come to WJCT studios tonight and help us hold space for our incredible and brave cast of storytellers, and help us celebrate this gigantic legal victory. Show times are 7 o'clock tonight, 1 o'clock tomorrow afternoon, and 7 o'clock tomorrow evening at 100 Festival Park Ave., across the street from the football stadium. Tickets can be bought at the door, or on Eventbrite. We look forward to seeing the smiles we know you'll be wearing for the rest of the weekend.

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I heard you guys read my poem "when you can't keep her eyes shut" happy to hear you liked it

Oh god! You know what? I know which one you're talking about. Lezlee shared it with our group a couple of days ago. Yes, it was beautiful and raw and so well-written. Thank you very much for allowing her to share that with us. :-D

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This is happening! Producer, Tina Vaughn, and cast members, Jo and Sarah Nieschalk, will be on WJXT channel 4's morning show around 9:45 this morning!!!

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Tickets Are On Sale for Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville’s 2015 Installment!

Building community through storytelling, one story at a time.

COM Cast and Crew look forward to captivating you with our stories once again!

This year, EVERY story delivered from the stage of WJCT will be read by the person who wrote the story - providing a face and a voice to our LGBT community.

Purchase your ticket TODAY, and this year we offer a new option to purchase a ticket for a JASMYN youth or PFLAG past/present scholarship recipient, so that we can continue to financially benefit BOTH organizations and the work they do in our community.

Click here to purchase your ticket for our Friday June 26 evening performance.

Click here to purchase your ticket for our Saturday June 27 matinee performance.

Click here to purchase your ticket for our Saturday June 27 evening performance.

Once you’ve purchased your tickets, don’t forget to share the Eventbrite link with your friends, so they can join you in the audience!

Questions? Email us at [email protected].

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More photos of our annual fundraising event @ Three Layers Cafe.  

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So much love at our annual fundraiser held at Three Layers Cafe!

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The first Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville rehearsal is in full swing! Triple squee!

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Bad news, folks! If you’re not already aware, our casino night fundraiser, scheduled for tonight at Steamin’, has been canceled. But don’t fret, our pets! There are still fundraising opportunities/parties to be had.

First, THIS VERY SATURDAY, April 4 at 9:00 in the morning, our one and only Tina...

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The Casino Night fundraiser at Steamin’ was cancelled, and Karma Yoga has come and gone, but don’t forget about the Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville 2015 Annual Fundraiser this Friday at Three Layers in Springfield from 6 to 9 o’clock in the evening! You can get further details on the event by clicking here for the Facebook event details. And, as always, if you can’t join our fundraiser for one reason or another, but you still want to help us make this thing happen, check us out on GoFundMe. If you’d like to contribute to Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville in other ways, shoot us an email at [email protected].

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As mentioned in a previous photo blog, Betterme Productions interviewed Paul Cordova about Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville during One Spark. Hear what Paul had to say about our project right here.

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It’s been one week since Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville broke down our display at One Spark. Now that we’ve fully recovered from that wonderfully exhausting event, we wanted to bring you a little photo essay about the experience, in case you missed it. Here it is: Part Three of Three: crew photos. Well... most of the crew.

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It’s been one week since Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville broke down our display at One Spark. Now that we’ve fully recovered from that wonderfully exhausting event, we wanted to bring you a little photo essay about the experience, in case you missed it. Here it is: Part Two of Three: delivery of the past monologues. 

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It’s been one week since Coming Out Monologues Jacksonville broke down our display at One Spark. Now that we’ve fully recovered from that wonderfully exhausting event, we wanted to bring you a little photo essay about the experience, in case you missed it. Here it is: Part One of Three: the arrival, the setup, and the friends who dropped by.

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From the archives.

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COM is unbreakable