STORIES FROM MY YOUTH: THEATER BASED ON LIFE HISTORIES OF LGBTQ OLDER ADULTS WHO LIVED IN SAN FRANCISCO AND THE BAY AREA DURING THE AIDS EPIDEMIC

Introduction LGBTQA older adults who lived in San Francisco during the 1980s and 1990s are uniquely affected by AIDS-related losses and traumas. Many of these adults feel isolated from the youth-centered San Francisco LGBTQA community and think their struggles are forgotten in the age of PreP. Indeed, many younger LGBTQA individuals may not understand the experiences of these elders, perpetuating the divide between the two generations. Theater and other storytelling art forms may be one way to bridge the divide, collect the stories of LGBTQA elders and help educate younger generations about HIV and AIDS. There is a long rich history of using life histories in geriatric psychiatry and palliative care to improve wellbeing of older adults. While collecting these stories for posterity is in itself worthwhile, turning these stories into art has the potential to connect generations, promote HIV prevention among younger individuals and help older LGBTQA adults reflect on and process their experiences and feel more connected to the larger LGBTQA community. Methods Albert Rubio, MFA is San Francisco based actor, playwright and director who spent a year collecting the stories of one gay man who was a nurse during the AIDS Epidemic in San Francisco and other parts of California. This project gave rise to a solo piece of theater entitled: Stories From My Youth, which has served as an inspiration of our project. Our goal is to use mixed methods, including autoethnography and theater psychology theory to better understand the process of creating theater, being a subject of theater and experiencing theater, along with its potential to heal and prevent. First, we used qualitative methods to analyze the impact of Stories From My Youth and the product of this analysis is the focus of this presentation. Next, we used the themes distilled during the qualitative work to design the semi-structured questions for the next step. The second step of the project involves collecting stories from a diverse group of long-term AIDS survivors and other LGBTQA individuals who lived during the AIDS crisis in San Francisco using qualitative methods informed by medical anthropology. We will use semi-structured interviews led by the artist which will be audio- and video-recorded. Next, we will use these stories to create an anthology of 10 short plays using theater psychology approaches to showcase the experiences in a way that is compelling for younger and older audiences. Telling the stories from the perspective of the participants when they were young, may be one such approach. Additionally, we will use autoethnographic approaches to understand the artistic process. Older adults will also provide quantitative data in screening and exit interviews with the research staff, as well as reflect on the process of providing their life history. We will characterize the mental health and social networks of older adults and their interactions with younger adults. At the end of the project, we hope to have performances of the plays in front of diverse age audiences and conduct focus groups and quantitative measures. We hypothesize that the process of reminiscing about their life histories and knowing that they will be written down as legacy and used to create theater may be transformative and/or healing for LGBTQ older adults. It is possible that knowing that their stories will be performed in front of a large mixed age audience will bring relief that the lessons of the AIDS epidemic will not be forgotten. Additionally, we are interested in the power of theater to change attitudes towards HIV in younger adults. We plan to measure the impact of the performance on younger adults, specifically their health behaviors and practices that expose them to HIV. Results We used qualitative methods to analyze Stories From My Youth, and identify the most meaningful and impactful aspects of the stories. Two coders read the screenplay and saw the performance twice in person. We used Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to gain insights into how an individual who has lived during the AIDS crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area makes sense of their experiences as they look back on them. The coders reached consensus on nine themes that emerged during the analysis. These themes include: 1) First queer experience in SF, 2) First love, 3) First friend diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, 4) First loss from AIDS, 5) Critical memory from the AIDS epidemic, 6) Perspective on the similarities and differences between the culture during the 80’s and 90’s and today's culture, 7) Reaction to diagnosis then and now, 8) Effect of HIV diagnosis on social relationships and social network, 9) Reaction to the advance of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). We then used these themes to design the semi-structured interview questions for the larger project. Conclusions The process of creating theater from the experience on one older gay man who lived through the AIDS crisis allowed the subject to discuss and reflect on many meaningful and traumatic parts of his life. This process is akin to the life history approach in palliative care and reminiscence therapy. Storytelling and theater have the potential to help older LGBTQA adults process and heal from traumas accumulated during their experiences during the AIDS crisis. This research was funded by None