Costa Mesa Nightclub to Have Sneak Preview of Gay Soap Opera

“Secret Passions” :

Nothing You Expect--Everything You Want.

--Line from a flyer announcing the local sneak preview premiere of “Secret Passions,” a gay-oriented soap opera.

“Secret Passions,” a gay-oriented soap opera under production in Orange County that has garnered nationwide publicity, will be given a local sneak preview Wednesday at a Costa Mesa nightclub, the show’s producer said Wednesday.

The show’s one-hour pilot, which includes a homosexual kissing scene, will be screened during a party at Newport Station, 1945 Placentia Ave., according to David Gadberry. The party, to start at 9 p.m., is open to the public at $5 a ticket, Gadberry said. (Information: (714) 891-4461.)

Gadberry also said the show, targeted for cable television, will have its TV premiere Tuesday at 11 p.m. in New York City over the Manhattan and Paragon Cable Systems via the Gay Broadcasting System.

However, GBS producer Butch Peaston said Wednesday that the Tuesday broadcast is still tentative. “I’ll reserve final comment until I see (the show),” Peaston said, noting that while he expects a tape, he had yet to receive one. “I think it’s important that someone is working on something like this,” added Peaston, who produces a weekly gay-oriented newsmagazine.

Plans for an Orange County broadcast are not firm.

Meanwhile, it appears that Gadberry will publicly debate the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, the Anaheim evangelist who has waged a highly publicized assault against homosexual rights. Sheldon has denounced the soap opera.

Gadberry said he and Sheldon will debate homosexuality on Feb. 2 on “Nine Broadcast Plaza,” a talk show broadcast nationally from New Jersey and carried locally (at 7 a.m.) on cable station WWOR. A spokeswoman for the show said she is 99% that sure both men will appear. Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, confirmed that he intends to appear.

“I’ll be there on behalf of millions of people who want to preserve the heterosexual ethic in the context of marriage,” Sheldon said Wednesday.

But he said he would be out of town on the night of the Costa Mesa preview party and is planning no action against it.

Gadberry said he has almost finished editing a second episode of “Secret Passions” and has started shooting a third. He said he expects that once the show airs, Hollywood executives will want to produce it for commercial cable television.