A Song Before Dying

His music comes from a place in the soul that is both angry and forgiving, reflecting the attitudes of a gay man with AIDS and those who scorn him.

Alternately funny, ironic, sad and redemptive, it offers a life on the edge that pauses for a final moment to face a world of despair and to play a last song before dying.

It’s the story of a composer named Gideon Welles, who decides to kill himself rather than die slowly of AIDS. And it’s the story of composer Steve Schalchlin, who has put what is essentially his own life into words and music.

Like the fictional character Gideon, Schalchlin, 43, is a gay man with AIDS. The difference between them is that while death may have seemed preferable to the emotional pain he was suffering, Schalchlin never seriously considered suicide. Instead, he began writing songs.

What has emerged is a musical called “The Last Session” that opened in New York eight months ago to critical acclaim and celebrated its 100th performance off-Broadway last week.

The play sprang from Schalchlin’s brush with death four years ago in L.A. Suffering from AIDS-related pneumonia, he recovered at home by writing about the experience in a tune called “Connected.”

Encouraged by his life partner Jim Brochu, Schalchlin wrote other songs that chronicled not only his own struggle with AIDS but also the attitudes of others toward him. Rather than dirges, they were elements of a life in turmoil, and no one who hears the music will soon forget it.

The lyrics ask for “one more song, one more breath, one more chance.”

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I met Schalchlin two years ago in the North Hollywood apartment he shares with Brochu. “The Last Session” had just won rave reviews at its first public airing, a benefit presentation to help pay the composer’s medical expenses. As I heard the story and listened to the music, I knew why.

Brochu wrote the book. Its title is derived from the last recording session Gideon has arranged before planning to take his life. Friends try talking him out of it, but scorn comes from a religious fundamentalist who decides that “a man can’t be a Christian and a fag at the same time.”

The son of a Baptist preacher, Schalchlin draws his detractors from real life. But in the end, he sees only good guys in his musical, an innovative combination of soft rock and gospel that tells Gideon’s story in bright and unsentimental tones. In the end, Gideon opts for life and the fundamentalist alters his attitude.

“We find grace for two segments of a population on either side of a divide,” Schalchlin said the other day in his apartment.

The divide that Schalchlin and Brochu are trying to span reflects the efforts of others who have used art as a means of reaching large audiences with messages about AIDS. Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” and Paul Monette’s books touched vast numbers by embracing life as their compelling themes.

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In addition to telling his story through words and music, Schalchlin also tells it online. He offers a diary of his daily struggle with AIDS for anyone willing to tap into his home page at https://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1173

It was through his diary that “The Last Session” got its chance. A Web reader from El Paso named Don Kirkpatrick decided that the musical deserved more than a private ASCAP presentation.

He offered Schalchlin and Brochu $10,000 to take it to the New York stage, and that’s exactly what they did. The musical opened off-off-Broadway last May in the Currican Theater. Scheduled for a run of three weeks, it ran four months. Then, on Oct. 17th, “Session” opened off-Broadway at the 47th Street Theater and is still playing there under Brochu’s direction. The critics are enthusiastic.

Plans are underway to take “The Last Session” to other major cities. L.A. is one. Simultaneously, Schalchlin is preparing a series of lectures for colleges and universities.

Diagnosed HIV-positive in 1993, he developed full-blown AIDS when his T-cell count dropped to 40. Protease inhibitors have brought the count up to 250, and it continues to rise. In whatever time that remains, Schalchlin wants to continue in person the message encompassed in “The Last Session” by spreading a gospel of enlightenment.

“I’ll just stand up there and tell my story and sing my songs,” he says. One of the songs strikes at the heart of what he’s trying to change. The lyrics say, “The fight that I am fighting is my own/And it feels as though I’m going it alone.” He wants us all to fight it together, and perhaps someday we will.

Al Martinez can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com