Starting a week ago, it felt like everyone was talking about Bottoming for Jesus—the new one person, one act, one hour show from Michael R. Specià le (writer, performer, and producer Michael Holt) about to stage its Portland premiere. The title is horny, the subject matter is religious, and the format approximates church-meets cabaret. There are plenty of people for which those things alone sold a ticket.
Holt could be called a prodigal Portlander. He grew up in Vancouver, Washington—where he met the show's director Spenser Theberge at the Vancouver School of Arts—but has spent much of his adult life in New York, Los Angeles, and Provo, Utah, where he completed an undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University (BYU).
According to Holt, Bottoming for Jesus is "both a send up and a love letter" to his years as a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, told with humor and song. There's something deeper happening in the work (the puns are punning) as he seeks to both entwine and unwind the relationship between religion, sexuality, and community. We interviewed Holy to learn a little more before Bottoming for Jesus' single show at Process PDX on May 8.
MERCURY: Bottoming for Jesus is a pretty intriguing title. How did it come about?
MICHAEL HOLT: The title itself is sincere. It's provocative, I'm trying to get people's attention, but I'm drawing connections between the ways that we submit in sex and sexuality, and the ways we submit to find fulfillment in religion and to find community. Jesus is one of the only male figures that I have fully submitted to in my life, and there's a lot of jokes around that. But the veil is very thin, I think, between the submission involved inside of spiritual practices—Christianity particularly—and gay sex or kinky sex, in general.
What made you decide to do this show? Or did you, kind of, always have it in your head?
I always knew. I started writing this as a series of essays during the pandemic—I knew I needed to make art from my experience in the Mormon Church—and as I wrote, what became really clear to me was how central music was, both to my experience inside and what drew me to the Mormon Church.
Being a musical-theater teenager was such a central part to how I remember that time. And I gave that up when I was Mormon. My creativity felt so intertwined with my sexuality, I gave up a lot of myself and performed what I was taught I was supposed to perform. I have called my years as a Mormon my greatest work of performance art to date. That's what the show is asking: What are we performing every single day, and for whom? Who does the performance serve? What do we give up in order to belong? So, it is asking some really big questions.
When did you join the Mormon Church?
I was baptized the day before my 16th birthday, which was two months after a friend was baptized, and I was actively Mormon until I was 22. After I finished my degree at BYU, I came out, and I formally left the church three years after that.
Were you religious before that?
We went to some generic Christian churches in Clark County, on and off. My parents weren't really religious, but we valued it as a noble thing to be.
What was your family's response to you becoming Mormon?
They were both cautious and wary, but I think they saw me as a pretty distraught 15-year-old that had a lot of deep questions, and all of a sudden I went from being kind of a dick to… we're actually getting into the show now, because one of the central questions of the show is, like: Why didn't anyone stop me?
You became better behaved, and it was easier for them?
I think I was doing pretty standard angsty teenager stuff. Inside, I was questioning my sexuality. 2003 Clark County wasn't exactly a welcoming environment. I didn't know if being gay was acceptable or not.
So were you in a headspace of not knowing if it was okay to be gay, and the Mormon Church gave you an answer—which was no—and at least that was an answer?
It was offering a framework that made more sense to me than anything else being offered at the time. I mean, the show is about—the bigger question I'm asking here is: What are we willing to give up of ourselves in order to find belonging and purpose?
Do you still consider yourself religious in some way?
I consider myself spiritual. I have spiritual practices that I had to forge on my own. That was probably the hardest thing about leaving the church, but it's also kind of what most people go through in their mid 20s. You look at the framework given to you, and you have to construct your own set of beliefs.
You have compared Bottoming for Jesus to being "almost like queer church," and I wonder how? Is the audience going to be asked to sing?
The audience is invited to participate in a number of ways. It's optional, but most people participate. I go back and forth on the "queer church" framing because it's what I've heard… I am using sermon and spiritual testimony as forms to share parts of the story. But I'm not trying to preach, and the show doesn't offer many answers. It asks a lot of questions.
Michael R. SpeciĂ le is your stage name, but you also adopted it pretty recently, right?
About a year ago, I [sent away a DNA test]—my results said I was a quarter Italian, which didn't make any sense. We didn't know of any Italian in my family heritage. We eventually found out that my grandmother lived next door to a man with the last name Specià le around the time my dad was born. Finding the name of the man we believe to be my actual grandfather just unlocked another level of how identity is such a performance in so many ways. That all happened when I was writing this and doing the development process with Spenser.
Spenser Theberge is the director, but you've also known one another since middle school.
What happened was I had four or five very rough essays. I had the title of the show—which I had been kind of sitting on for a while—and that central concept of what do we give up in order to belong? Then I had a song list of probably like 10 different songs. And I took all of that to Spencer, who I frequently collaborate with.
I've spent the last 10-15 years working in arts administration, and this show is my first solo debut performance of a work that I've developed. It's been very nourished by the relationships I've built. Jeremiah Ginn, who is the music director, was also my first boyfriend ever. It's my first solo show, but I've also been training and performing onstage since age 11.
That's actually one thing that has helped me make sense of why I behaved the way I did. This show is about how we make belief. I grew up as an actor, trained in the Sanford Meisner technique of acting. Meisner always said that acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.
Michael R. SpeciĂ le performs Bottoming for Jesus at Process PDX, 5040 SE Milwaukie, Thurs May 8, 7:30 pm, tickets and info at bottomingforjesus.com.
