For over thirty years, David Mauriello has authored gay and straight-themed plays that have gained universal renown, and the Ring has premiered many of David’s new works. The Ring will honor David’s legacy, both as a playwright and as mainstay of the Ring’s Board of Directors, with a screening of his play Just Say Love at the start of Pride Weekend. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Bill Humphreys, producer, director and filmmaker, and Hershey Hershkop, Executive Director of Seacoast Outright.

Just Say Love tells the story of Guy, (Matthew Jaeger) a student of Plato and Doug (Robert Mammana) a brawny construction worker who is looking for more than a stroll in the park to blow off some steam. From their first fiery encounter that would make one believe that their relationship can never move beyond physical addiction alone, to the sublime “you’d be my wings if I had them”, the film becomes a how-to manual for finding joy and fulfillment and challenges us to consider that helping each other to grow spiritually is the paramount ingredient in and the real paradigm for personal relationships.

When the play made its transition to film through the dedicated work of filmmaker Bill Humphreys, David wrote, “JUST SAY LOVE is a lusty yet sublime story of love and the law of attraction that portrays “spirit” as a muscle, real and practical as our biceps, pecs, heart and, yes, you name it. It’s common sense that all muscles need exercising, and we have no problem in seeing when the aforementioned body parts are calling for a workout. Problem is that we forget to exercise our spiritual muscle because we can’t see it; we have to experience it.”