“For the Love of Peter,” May 8 and 9

Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, 7:30 p.m.

Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL

As part of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's third-annual Pride Celebration, the Moline venue will host the debut of local actor/playwright Don Faust's comedy For the Love of Peter, an original one-act being presented on May 8 and 9.

As Faust said via e-mail, "For the Love of Peter is about a guy who's turning 30, who's just been dumped by his latest boyfriend, and so his friends throw him a birthday party to try and get his mind off his heartache. They also try to find him their own version of 'love' (or lust!) to try to cheer him up, much to Peter's chagrin. But as in life, Love has a way of showing up where and when you least expect it."

For the Love of Peter is the third play by Faust (appearing in Playcrafters' drama A Soldier's Play through May 3) to be staged in the theatre's annual Pride Celebrations. Describing the romantic comedy's origin, Faust said, "Peter started probably 10 years ago, and it was one I tweaked over the years, and even had a staged reading in our living room years ago. The overall verdict from the largely straight group of theater friends was: It was cute, and they seemed to like it. When I shared it with (the production's director) Jacque Cahoon probably seven or eight years ago, she loved it, as well, and wanted to get it produced. Our thought was maybe trying to do it at the Village Theatre in Davenport as part of a Valentine's series of short pieces, but that never got off the ground.

"After COVID," Faust continued, "I shared Peter with Matt Moody, who expressed interest in finally getting it produced at the Village Theatre. Four days later, he took his final bow, and left us all unexpectedly. Jacque tried to get it produced at Playcrafters last year, but couldn't find enough guys to fill out the cast. Jacque said she wanted to try again this year, and while I still won't believe it until opening night, it looks like it's going to actually happen. I couldn't be more thrilled!"

Included among the For the Love of Peter cast are Playcrafters veteran Drew DeKeyrel (Rabbit Hole, Blithe Spirit, The Diary of Anne Frank) as Peter, with the ensemble completed by Michael Carron, Bradley S. Franks, Esteban Lopez, David Lee Perkins, and John R. Turner, the latter of whom has appeared in all of Faust's Pride Celebration shows. Regarding his inspirations for the show, Faust said that his latest play is more than somewhat autobiographical.

“Peter is me, and I am Peter,” he said. “I grew up in Chicago on the far northwest side, about as far removed from Boystown and the gay scene as you could possibly be. Plus, sex was taboo in my family; gay sex was off the radar. Perhaps to compensate, I spent the majority of my adult life, in the words of in Johnny Lee's 1980 hit single, 'Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,' desperately trying to love, getting my heart broken time after time, and afraid I'd never find it.

“Peter's two closest friends Howard and Jack,” Faust continued, “have taken him in after his parents throw him out. And while that never actually happened to me, my deepest wish and hope was to have parents in the form of gay men who accepted me, cared about me, looked after me, and wanted me to find love. I saw how my parents doted over my future sister-in-law when my brother started dating her in college, and inside, I wanted that for myself … only with my future husband. Peter came about as I imagined what that kind of world might've looked like for a younger me.”

Faust, who just celebrated his 12th anniversary with husband and fellow Playcrafters veteran Jim Strauss, is one of few local playwrights who have enjoyed recent stagings of their original works. He said he appreciates Playcrafters for giving him, on numerous occasions, the opportunity to have his stage pieces seen and enjoyed by local audiences.

“Most theatres around here aren't all that keen on doing original shows," Faust said, "although that's been changing the last several years. When I first started doing theatre here, in 1994, I began with a now-defunct theater group called Unsafe Ensemble. We only did cutting-edge theatre, original works, et cetera, performing wherever we could find people who'd let us use their space. It was truly organic and raw theatre, some of which was actually good, and some was ... well, just weird. But it was us, and it was a blast! My first playwright experience was for a series of short pieces called Unsafe Encounters, writing a few plays about AIDS. (This was the mid-'90s). My first full-length play called All in the Family, which I wrote in 1997, was about a world in which 90 percent of the population was gay, and one young man realizes he's different, or 'bent.' We performed it in a conference room at the old Moline library on 41st Street, and the last night we sold out (66 people, I believe).

"Ironically," Faust continues, "John Turner, who played the grandpa in that show, is starring as one of the friends, Mike, in Peter. He also played the part of Dad in Dad & Me, which was produced at my church [Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities] in 2016. However, these venues were extremely challenging, because none of them are theatres. I'm so grateful to Playcrafters that (a) they're willing to take on new and original shows, and (b) that they have the capacity to make them work. I'm also super-grateful to Jacque for agreeing to direct it, because I'm just too close to the material, and too much of a control freak, to not go completely nuts. I've directed my shows before, and it's not fun!"

In the end, said Faust of For the Love of Peter, "I would love for people to fall in love with the characters as much as I have. Each of them, in their own unique and quirky ways, represents facets of myself and those around me. In the end, this show is about friendship and love. So if the audience leaves feeling a little lighter and more warm and fuzzy than when they came tonight, the show will have been a success."

With the Moline theatre's 2026 Pride Celebration kicking off with an Act I performance by Moody's Idiots, described by the venue as delivering "unfiltered, fast-paced sketch comedy that’s chaotic, queer, and a little unhinged," the event's Act II, For the Love of Peter, will be performed at the Barn Theatre May 8 and 9. Admission to the 7:30 p.m. evenings of entertainment is $13, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 and visiting Facebook.com/playcrafters.