"Maybe," says Gladys Soler, "I'm just a drama queen." It's a question Soler has been asking herself a lot these past five months as the story of her life has unfolded onstage.

It was in May that Soler, 53, and her best friend, Mary-Jane Cunningham, 58, first contacted David Bernstein, executive director of The Public Theatre of South Florida. They had an idea.

Soler, a social worker by day, has been onstage since grade school. Cunningham has been a performer all her life and even recorded a CD featuring songs from her lounge act. Together, the best friends own a production company called That's Show Biz, which helps nonprofit groups create musical revue fund-raisers.

They were looking for someone to help direct them in their own musical revue. They wanted to tell the frustrating yet hilarious story of two lesbians trying to secure vendors for their holy union, and how the most common response was: "Holy what?"

"In the course of telling me the story, certain things came to light," says Bernstein. "It was Gladys' story."

The short version of Gladys' story goes like this.

At age 48, Gladys had been married for 25 years. She and her husband had three children and, on the face of it, a very happy life. The Soler household even included her mother and an elderly aunt.

But about six years ago, Soler fell in love. Not with another man but with a wonderful and successful woman she'll identify only as Maria. In 1995, Soler gathered up her three kids, her mother and aunt and moved from her home in Fort Lauderdale to her new partner's home in West Boca.

"It was a really rough time in my life," says Soler, who is at times a master of understatement. "It was awful. Admitting it to myself was the hardest part and the scariest part. And leaving something that was very secure, very established and not knowing who was going to accept me."

Self-acceptance has been easy. Her Puerto Rico-born parents taught her to be proud of who she was. Soler was the only Hispanic in her Long Island high school graduating class of 800. She turned ethnic pride into gay pride.

The musical revue became a full-scale musical comedy with a cast of 14, written by Soler, Cunningham and Bernstein. More than the rejection the couple received when planning their commitment ceremony, Holy What? tells the story of how two fiftysomething women fall in love, merge families, tell their respective mothers they are gay and forge a life together.

Bernstein directs Holy What?, which opens Friday for a three-night run at the Broward Public Library, the first in the Public's Fifth Annual Lesbian/Gay Play Festival. While the musical is based on Soler's experience, much of what audiences will see is dramatized.

So why did Soler agree to have her story put onstage?

"I'm 53 years old and can deal with homophobic people. But from a mother's point of view, I'm hoping that I can leave something for my son, who's 18 and is now just coming out."

Her oldest son, 23, is married with one son. Though he doesn't want to be identified, he asked Soler if he could accompany her to gay pride festivities this year. He wanted to buy the baby a T-shirt that said: "My grandma is gay." Matthew, 18, is gay and trying to set up a gay and lesbian group at his high school. Kellie, 15, had a bigger adjustment period, but is fine now. Soler's mother still lives with them, but her aunt went into a nursing home a few years ago after a fall.

Maria had been single for eight years prior to the arrival of the Soler clan. Soler is only half-joking when she suggests her partner should be canonized.

But it's critical, says this former teacher, that people witness the lives of lesbians and gay men. The stage, she says, is the place she's always felt most comfortable.

"I've had a couple of family members who have not been happy," she says. "They might have accepted me, but they don't understand why I have to carry it another step further. It's not just for me. If I can make it better for my son to be able to exist in this community, then this is all worth it."

She also gets to wear the gown she wore at her own holy union.

Bernstein, whose musical Out of the Lamp was the winner of the 1999 National Children's Theater Festival, says he was immediately attracted to Soler's story.

"I'm very much a fan of stories about underdogs and tolerance and acceptance," he says. "I have my own issues as a disabled man and being Jewish. These concepts rang true with me on a couple of different levels and it also seemed like a very good story from a dramatic point of view."

Bernstein interviewed Soler for more than 40 hours for the dramatic details in the play.

"At the beginning of the project, she started out walking on eggshells," he says. "Gladys had a lot of trepidation about not wanting to hurt anybody's feelings in her family. She had great fears about not wanting her ex-husband to come off as a villain. I don't think he does."

While Bernstein has known many lesbians and gay men during 20 years in theater, he had to learn a lot to write the script. He needed to learn, for instance, how lesbian couples punish each other. In his heterosexual mind, he thought it would be by withholding sex. But he learned it was more likely by giving the silent treatment.

He also made sure to remind Soler that she was playing a character named Carmen, not herself.

"Maybe the reason Gladys wanted to do it so badly was to figure out exactly what happened here," he says. "I think she's learned a lot. And I think we all have. I think she has a better sense of why certain things happened and why she made certain choices. There were things that she knew on a visceral level previously, but now she's better able to articulate."

Soler says there's already been a sign that the musical has succeeded. A woman called to buy a ticket for her sister who has come to realize her true sexual orientation.

John Tanasychuk can be reached at jtanasychuk@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4632.