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Laboratory Theater Offers Panel on 'Sordid Lives' Exploration of LGBT Identity, Conversion Therapy

Photo: The Laboratory Theater of Florida
Scenes from "Sordid Lives" at the Laboratory Theater.

The Laboratory Theater of Florida is currently running performances of the black comedy “Sordid Lives,”  an LGBT cult classic about family members dealing with their demons as they gather together after a death in the family. Audiences are invited after Thursday's performance to participate in a ‘talk back’ panel about ideas found in the play, from grappling with an LGBT identity, to gay conversion therapy, to institutionalization.

Panelists and actors from the show join Gulf Coast Live to discuss the performance and how its theme’s relate to their own experiences. Guests include:

Matthew Smith is a reporter and producer of WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.
Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.