Hal Ackerman

As co-chair of UCLA’s screenwriting program, screenwriter Hal Ackerman has become well-versed at capturing a wide range of life’s emotions – both highs and lows. He became all too familiar with the “lows” after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999. And now staying true to his art, Hal is telling his story to others in dramatic fashion.

Act 1: An Unwelcome Visitor
Hal had no overriding concerns of prostate cancer.  His family history of heart disease was the main reason he scheduled the check-up with his doctor. During that visit, he had his prostate checked as a precaution, knowing he was in the prime age demographic for the disease.  It was almost an afterthought.

Hal’s world would be forever changed when the doctor felt a roughness on one side of his prostate during the digital rectal exam.

“After having the biopsy done, I’ll never forget hearing my doctor say across his desk ‘you have quite a bit of cancer there,’” recalls Hal. “My head began to swim, and I was scared out of my mind.”

Hal’s “outer body” experience upon hearing his diagnosis was a scary one, and led him to not want to worry family members. As single parent of a teenage daughter and son of a doting worrisome mother, he started treatment quietly without announcing his disease.

Act 2: Oh the ‘Joys’ of Therapy
The side effects that came with the treatment of Hal’s prostate cancer were more than he bargained for. He decided to undergo hormone blockage after receiving advice from an acquaintance who had undergone the same treatment method.

Drugs that block testosterone and other sex hormones are widely used in treatments for men with prostate cancer. Androgens (male hormones) enable receptors on prostate cancer cells to stimulate tumor growth. Hormonal blockade therapy shuts down testosterone production with the goal of shrinking prostate cancer tumors, halting pain, and extending life.

The medication not only shut down testosterone, but shut down Hal’s sex drive, and as result left his body chemistry in limbo.  For Hal, the timing could not have been worse.  He had just entered into a new relationship.

“For about a year I was a chemical eunuch,” says Hal. “I lost my sex drive, which wasn’t the best thing for my dating life.”

Undesirable side effects often result from hormone blockade therapy, including loss of sexual desire, impotence, hot flashes, anemia and osteoporosis. And as unpleasant as Hal’s side effects were, the alternative – possible death – gave him reason to look for a silver lining.

“Cancer gives you that brush with your own mortality,” says Hal. “When weighty problems occur as they do to everyone’s life, we tend to obsess over them.  Surviving cancer helps you accept all that life has to offer, with its full pallet of experiences.”

Act 3: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man out of Me
Hal began to write about his experiences with cancer the night before he was scheduled to have radioactive pellets inserted into his prostate cancer to shrink his tumor. With so much inside to let out, what he wrote down soon became an outline for a play he would perform years later for others.

Titled Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man out of Me, the play follows the journey of a man who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. In writing the biographic content, Hal retraced the numerous emotions he went through while battling cancer.

“It was very cathartic writing and performing the play,” says Hal.  “When I perform it now it brings back all the emotions I went through.”

With scenes depicting the tribulations a man with prostate cancer has to deal with, the play also has comedic undertones to engage audiences. In doing so Hal also wanted to include all the issues that affected him and other men battling the same disease.

“I wanted to encapsulate what is it to be a man when you have prostate cancer,” says Hal. “I also wanted to delve into issues dealing with my initial diagnosis, subsequent treatments, and the relationship dynamics I had with the opposite sex and family.”

Since his initial performance in 2008, Hal had taken his act to prostate cancer conventions and hospitals with the goal of spreading awareness for a disease he feels needs to be talked more openly about.

Having completed performances in Santa Monica, California, Hal is currently looking to perform his play in New York in the near future. In August, he will conduct a free reading in New York with Tony Award winning actor James Naughton in hopes to bringing attention to the play.

“It’s really touching having men come up to me after a show and tell me about their experiences with prostate cancer,” says Hal. “It’s been very liberating getting men to talk about their vulnerabilities. The open dialogue may possibly help saves someone’s life down the line.”