Michael DeBartolo is currently in New York City, where he’s already performed a version of his comic monodrama Tell Me Where Home Is (I’m Starting to Forget).
I messaged him on 29 January this year in response to a question he asked on the Edinburgh Fringe Performers Forum on Facebook. Since then, we’ve been in regular contact, discussing all aspects of the production and what to expect in Edinburgh. Here’s more of his story.
Michael, let’s start with your background in the USA.
I grew up in suburban Connecticut – loving family, pretty house, nice teachers. On the surface, everything looked idyllic. But underneath, I knew something was off. I had my first crush on a boy in the mid-90s, and it felt like someone had dropped a tornado into my world. I was spun into a whirlwind of longing and glittering illusions, suddenly searching for somewhere – anywhere – I could feel at home in my own skin.
I studied communications at the University of Rhode Island (because that’s what you do when you’re not quite ready to say, “I want to be an actor”). But an intro theatre class woke something up in me. I won Last Comic Standing at my university in senior year, and I knew performing was just beginning.
After graduation, I moved to New York City… and in with my 90-year-old Grandma Cissy in the Bronx. I spent most of my 20s with her. She quickly became a social media fan favourite, and living with her was one of the great gifts of my life.
Then you trained and started to perform and write.
Yes. I trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse, auditioned, performed in off-Broadway plays and – of course – waited many, many tables. The turning point came when I was cast as Sebastian in the VR film Queerskins: A Love Story. It premiered at Tribeca, won a Peabody, and led to a second film and several offshoots. That project gave me a taste of how deeply I needed to tell my own story – one rooted in queerness, grief, humour, tenderness and love.
In 2018, I set out to write 100 stories in 100 days about growing up gay – the kind of stories I needed as a kid. I shared them on Facebook and the response floored me. One was picked up by Humans of New York and shared with millions. That’s when I realised the story didn’t just belong to me – it could ripple outward.
How did you arrive at your show’s title?
It was inspired by a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul, where a four-year-old girl gently pleads with her newborn brother, “Tell me what God feels like; I’m starting to forget.”
That line cracked something open in me. We come into the world with a sense of connection and wholeness – and slowly, the world teaches us to forget. That story, paired with my lifelong bond to The Wizard of Oz – especially as a little gay boy who saw himself in Dorothy – birthed the title Tell Me Where Home Is (I’m Starting to Forget). It felt like a prayer.
How would you describe your show?
The show is about remembering; who we were before shame told us who we were “supposed” to be. It’s about finding our way back to that sense of belonging – and realising it was here all along.
It’s a queer spiritual rollercoaster about denial and longing, filled with gay panic, irreverent humour and gut punches; camp, unfiltered and tender. It’s VHS tapes and locker rooms and the desperate, ridiculous, beautiful ways we try to find home in a world that teaches us to run from the truth. Think Dorothy’s journey over the rainbow… but with more masturbation jokes and fewer Munchkins.
Why is it important for you to share this show now?
One of the loudest messages I received growing up was about what couldn’t be spoken aloud. The silence around queerness in my home and school wasn’t just absence – it was instruction. When something is never named, you start to believe it doesn’t belong in the world.
As I write this, the US Supreme Court has ruled that parents can pull their children from school when books with queer or trans themes are read. We’re living in a time when erasure is being legalised. What’s at stake isn’t just stories – it’s people’s humanity.
This show is my resistance. It’s not just about breaking silence – it’s about speaking the unfiltered truth of what shame and self-hatred can look like in a child. And through that truth, creating space for compassion, recognition and the kind of belonging every child deserves.
At what point did you decide to take this show to Edinburgh?
In many ways, I’ve spent my life struggling to put myself out there. I’ve hidden behind humour, perfectionism and fear. But as terrifying as it is to share my story with a room full of strangers, it’s nowhere near as terrifying as the ache of wondering, “What if I had done the brave thing?”
So this is about choosing courage. And with Edinburgh, it’s about having the guts to leave my comfort zone and bring something raw and personal to a new audience. Regardless of the outcome, I want to live a life where I know I showed up – wholeheartedly.
And if I can offer even a fraction of what certain works of art have given me – that moment of recognition, that “me too” – then every vulnerable word will have been worth it.
How are you feeling, now that it’s one month away?
I’m undulating between beaming with pride and Googling diseases that require quarantine but aren’t life-threatening. Part of me is thrilled, and part of me wants a valid excuse to hide under the covers. But the truth is, my heart is in this show. Every word, every joke, every gut punch. I’d rather put my heart out there and have it break than keep it buried and safe. I’m scared. But I’m ready.
What would you like people to take away from your show?
Laughter, first. Big, guttural, did-he-just-say-that? laughter. But beneath that, I hope they leave feeling more connected to themselves.
Tara Brach said, “It’s not until we stop running from ourselves and offer compassion to our unmet needs that we can truly awaken.” That’s what I want this show to do – to remind us of our humanity, our ridiculousness, and our right to belong. Even if only for an hour.
