Several San Diego actors will take the stage in Write Out Loud’s production ‘Prism Prose and Passion,’ a benefit performance for the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation at Diversionary Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 2 p.m. The actors will read short stories or passages from longer stories on stage. Each will reflect a part of life in the GLBT community.

“Each story is very different,” Write Out Loud executive director Walter Ritter said. “They’re not downers, they’re not stories about the GLBT community in trouble. They’re insightful pieces of short fiction that happen to deal with gay men or lesbians as their primary characters.”

Veronica Murphy serves as artistic director for Write Out Loud and is also performing.

“They’re stories about people, relationships and how we deal with people,” Murphy added. “The stories deal with who we are in the sixth grade and how we are as adults.”

A book of short stories titled Telling Tales is the inspiration behind the Write Out Loud benefit performance. According to Ritter, the writers and by the publisher of Telling Tales donated its proceeds to help with the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa.

“We wanted to replicate something like that in San Diego,” Ritter said. “The right opportunity arrived to do something.”

After consulting with Dan Kirsch, the artistic director of the Diversionary Theatre, Write Out Loud decided the proceeds would benefit the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation.

“Their goal is to form an endowment that would fund future activities ranging from health to life in the arts in the LGBT community in San Diego,” Ritter said, noting the decision made the most sense.

“It has always been one of our dreams to use the proceeds to benefit people with HIV AIDS,” Murphy said. “When we discovered ion [Theatre] was working with Diversionary on Bent, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to partner with these organizations and make it happen.”

The title of the benefit, “Prism, Prose and Passion” serves as a representation of the evening, Ritter said, explaining Write Out Loud wanted to think of a symbol to describe the GLBT community. Not wanting to use the word rainbow, the group deduced prisms because rainbows are prisms of light.

“What we’re doing is prose and passion is in the prose,” he noted.

Ritter expressed interest in continuing similar performances.

“We would like very much to do an ongoing program for the LGBT audience written by and for that audience,” Ritter said.

In the current economic climate, nonprofit organizations are struggling to survive. Tony Freeman, executive director of the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation is grateful for the assistance.

“2009 has been a very difficult year for all non profits and we greatly apprecite their support and generosity,” Freeman said adding he thinks the authors are exciting and expects the performances to be wonderful, a statement Ritter agrees with.

“I think you’ll find the performances from beginning to end are on a high level,” Ritter concluded.

The performance roster includes the stories Violet Hill Elementary School, an excerpt from Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown, Lions and Shadows by Christopher Isherwood and read by Jonathan Dunn Rankin, The Inadvertent Headshot by Robert J. Hughes and read by Tom Andrew, You Go When You Can No Longer Stay by Jackie Kay and read by Linda Libby, A True Story by Nicole Vollrath and read by Veronica Murphy.

Tickets are $12. Diversionary Theatre is located at 4545 Park Boulevard, in University Heights. For more information, call 619-297-8953 or e-mail writeoutloudsd@gmail.com.