Arts & Entertainment
Black and gay in D.C.
Theater festival features two playwrights tackling sexuality, AIDS on stage
DC Black Theatre Festival
June 23-July 1
‘Moments of Truth,’ June 30
9 p.m., Navy Memorial Theater
701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.‘11 x 8 ½ inches,’ June 29
9 p.m., Howard University Blackburn Center
2400 Sixth St., N.W.Ticket prices vary.
dcblacktheatrefestival.com
A scene from ‘Moments of Truth’ (Photo courtesy D.C. Black Theatre Festival)
In the upcoming DC Black Theatre Festival, a commemoration of African-American culture and works, two playwrights seek to shine a spotlight on the black LGBT community.
Monte Wolfe and Alan Sharpe, both black D.C. playwrights, have focused their pieces on sexuality, love and dealing with the complications of HIV/AIDS. Their plays are being featured in the festival, which starts June 23 and runs through July 1 at various locations in the D.C. area.
“A problem is a lack in visibility,” says Sharpe. “Representations of black gays have been very limited, and in the past those characters were used as something to ridicule.”
Sharpe’s piece, “11 x 8 ½ inches,” is a series of short scenes that explores the lives of black gay men living in D.C. Each scene explores ideas of sex and sexuality, sometimes entering into the erotic, raunchy and romantic. The piece is being featured in the New Works Reading Series, a part of the festival that showcases new works by upcoming and established playwrights in the area.
Reginald Richards, a gay actor in Sharpe’s play, says the piece works to break stereotypes of the “typical gay man.”
“People expect us to be very flamboyant and really sexual,” he says. “It is important for people to see we come with all different personalities and different ethnic backgrounds.”
Wolfe’s play, “Moments of Truth,” is also a series of short scenes that show a variety of people dealing with the complications of HIV/AIDS and how it affects love and relationships. With a less than $1,000 budget, the minimalist style keeps the focus on the short but charged interactions between the characters.
“There is something for everybody in the show, whether you are black, white, gay or straight,” he says. “It is about connecting AIDS to sexuality and working through those problems.”
Wolfe was diagnosed with AIDS in late 2004. This helped trigger his interest in HIV/AIDS outreach, in which he created the Brave Soul Collective, a theater company, in 2006. The company focuses on plays with LGBT themes.
Sharpe has been writing plays with LGBT themes since 1992. Coincidentally, he was also diagnosed with AIDS the same year. He and Wolfe have collaborated on several works, and Wolfe is an actor in one of the scenes of Sharpe’s piece.
“Alan has always been a mentor to me,” says Wolfe. “He makes it clear to me the character I want to perform and what I want to write about in my plays.”
Sharpe says that the festival is a good opportunity to shed light on talent that might otherwise be overlooked.
“It is amazing to see artists travel from all over the country to join together for a few days,” he says. “It allows artists to reach a broader range of audience.”
Barbara Asare-Bediako, an actor in Wolfe’s piece, identifies as, “a woman who just loves a woman.”
“My ultimate goal is to make black theater and gay theater a normal thing,” she says. “I want it so we can turn on the TV and it would just be part of society.”
However she says it is still important to focus on talent coming from the African-American community, and doing HIV/AIDS outreach. Asare-Bediako has been involved with several outreach programs, including HIPS, to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“I had a cousin who passed,” she says. “I found out months after it happened. My uncle, his father, acts like he never had a son.”
Asare-Bediako also cites the high HIV/AIDS rate in the District as an important factor to consider when selecting themes for the festival. The newly infected HIV/AIDS rate among African-American women has nearly doubled in D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods in the past two years, according to a recent Washington Post report.
Despite their focus on LGBT themes, Sharpe and Wolfe work to keep all kinds of audience members involved.
“We focus on the universal elements and not on division,” says Wolfe. “We cry, we laugh, we dream just like everybody else.”
Jared Shamberger, an actor in Wolfe’s piece who also wrote some of the scenes, says the piece includes a little bit of everything and expresses that everyone experiences powerful moments of truth.
“Even though we do primarily focus on LGBT themes, LGBT people have heterosexual friends and vice versa,” he says. “I don’t think you could present the LGBT story without including the heterosexual experience as well.”
One of his scenes is about a heterosexual couple that just had unprotected sex for the first time before they even went on a first date. They talk about where they are as a couple and about getting tested.
Shamberger agrees that including themes that deal with the HIV/AIDS rate is important.
“The HIV infection is not making headlines anymore,” he says. “People are getting infected everyday still, and I think it is something that people should be made aware of.”
Both pieces develop their themes through short scenes rather than a longer narrative arc. Wolfe says this makes the piece more powerful.
“I think it keeps people on their toes,” he says. “I don’t think I want the audience to get married to one particular character. I want them to see some bits of themselves in all the characters.”
Sharpe and Wolfe say that including LGBT themes in the theater is a great way to make people aware of the LGBT community by drawing them into characters’ lives.
“Gay people go through the same thing, they fall in love and they get heartbroken,” says Bediako. “People need to see these stories, see that gay people live normal lives, whatever normal is.”
Shamberger says it is impossible to write a play about the African-American community without including the LGBT community.
“I think if we are trying to present the landscape of black experience we have to include LGBT people as well,” he says.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington perform “The Holiday Show” at Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.). Visit gmcw.org for tickets and showtimes.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Santa will be very relieved.
You’ve taken most of the burden off him by making a list and checking it twice on his behalf. The gift-buying in your house is almost done – except for those few people who are just so darn hard to buy for. So what do you give to the person who has (almost) everything? You give them a good book, like maybe one of these.
Memoir and biography
The person who loves digging into a multi-level memoir will be happy unwrapping “Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama” by Alexis Okeowo (Henry Holt). It’s a memoir about growing up Black in what was once practically ground zero for the Confederacy. It’s about inequality, it busts stereotypes, and yet it still oozes love of place. You can’t go wrong if you wrap it up with “Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore” by Ashley D. Farmer (Pantheon). It’s a chunky book with a memoir with meaning and plenty of thought.
For the giftee on your list who loves to laugh, wrap up “In My Remaining Years” by Jean Grae (Flatiron Books). It’s part memoir, part comedy, a look back at the late-last-century, part how-did-you-get-to-middle-age-already? and all fun. Wrap it up with “Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas” by Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazellip with Elisa Petrini (Viking). It’s about the adventures of two 80-something best friends who seize life by the horns – something your giftee should do, too.
If there’ll be someone at your holiday table who’s finally coming home this year, wrap up “How I Found Myself in the Midwest” by Steve Grove (Simon & Schuster). It’s the story of a Silicon Valley worker who gives up his job and moves with his family to Minnesota, which was once home to him. That was around the time the pandemic hit, George Floyd was murdered, and life in general had been thrown into chaos. How does someone reconcile what was with what is now? Pair it with “Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America” by Will Bardenwerper (Doubleday). It’s set in New York and but isn’t that small-town feel universal, no matter where it comes from?
Won’t the adventurer on your list be happy when they unwrap “I Live Underwater” by Max Gene Nohl (University of Wisconsin Press)? They will, when they realize that this book is by a former deep-sea diver, treasure hunter, and all-around daredevil who changed the way we look for things under water. Nohl died more than 60 years ago, but his never-before-published memoir is fresh and relevant and will be a fun read for the right person.
If celeb bios are your giftee’s thing, then look for “The Luckiest” by Kelly Cervantes (BenBella Books). It’s the Midwest-to-New-York-City story of an actress and her life, her marriage, and what she did when tragedy hit. Filled with grace, it’s a winner.
Your music lover won’t want to open any other gifts if you give “Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur” by Jeff Pearlman (Mariner Books). It’s the story of the life, death, and everything in-between about this iconic performer, including the mythology that he left behind. Has it been three decades since Tupac died? It has, but your music lover never forgets. Wrap it up with “Point Blank (Quick Studies)” by Bob Dylan, text by Eddie Gorodetsky, Lucy Sante, and Jackie Hamilton (Simon & Schuster), a book of Dylan’s drawings and artwork. This is a very nice coffee-table size book that will be absolutely perfect for fans of the great singer and for folks who love art.
For the giftee who’s concerned with their fellow man, “The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances” by Kevin Fagan (One Signal / Atria) may be the book to give. It’s a story of two “unhoused” people in San Francisco, one of the country’s wealthiest cities, and their struggles. There’s hope in this book, but also trouble and your giftee will love it.
For the person on your list who suffered loss this year, give “Pine Melody” by Stacey Meadows (Independently Published), a memoir of loss, grief, and healing while remembering the person gone.
LGBTQ fiction
For the mystery lover who wants something different, try “Crime Ink: Iconic,” edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West (Bywater Books), a collection of short stories inspired by “queer legends” and allies you know. Psychological thrillers, creepy crime, cozies, they’re here.
Novel lovers will want to curl up this winter with “Middle Spoon” by Alejandro Varela (Viking), a book about a man who appears to have it all, until his heart is broken and the fix for it is one he doesn’t quite understand and neither does anyone he loves.
LGBTQ studies – nonfiction
For the young man who’s struggling with issues of gender, “Before They Were Men” by Jacob Tobia (Harmony Books) might be a good gift this year. These essays on manhood in today’s world works to widen our conversations on the role politics and feminism play in understanding masculinity and how it’s time we open our minds.
If there’s someone on your gift list who had a tough growing-up (didn’t we all?), then wrap up “I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can” by Jon Kinnally (Permuted Press / Simon & Schuster). Kinnally was once an awkward kid but he grew up to be a writer for TV shows you’ll recognize. You can’t go wrong gifting a story like that. Better idea: wrap it up with “So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, & The Show That Started It All” by Leisha Hailey & Kate Moennig (St. Martin’s Press), a book about a little TV show that launched a BFF-ship.
Who doesn’t have a giftee who loves music? You sure do, so wrap up “The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream” by Jon Savage (Liveright). Nobody has to tell your giftee that queer folk left their mark on music, but they’ll love reading the stories in this book and knowing what they didn’t know.
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Theater
Studio’s ‘Mother Play’ draws from lesbian playwright’s past
A poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs
‘The Mother Play’
Through Jan. 4
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$42 – $112
Studiotheatre.org
“The Mother Play” isn’t the first work by Pulitzer Prize-winning lesbian playwright Paula Vogel that draws from her past. It’s just the most recent.
Currently enjoying an extended run at Studio Theatre, “The Mother Play,” (also known as “The Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions,” or more simply, “Mother Play”) is a 90-minute powerful and poignant memory piece laced with sadness and wry laughs.
The mother in question is Phyllis Herman (played exquisitely by Kate Eastwood Norris), a divorced government secretary bringing up two children under difficult circumstances. When we meet them it’s 1964 and the family is living in a depressing subterranean apartment adjacent to the building’s trash room.
Phyllis isn’t exactly cut out for single motherhood; an alcoholic chain-smoker with two gay offspring, Carl and Martha, both in their early teens, she seems beyond her depth.
In spite (or because of) the challenges, things are never dull in the Herman home. Phyllis is warring with landlords, drinking, or involved in some other domestic intrigue. At the same time, Carl is glued to books by authors like Jane Austen, and queer novelist Lytton Strachey, while Martha is charged with topping off mother’s drinks, not a mean feat.
Despite having an emotionally and physically withholding parent, adolescent Martha is finding her way. Fortunately, she has nurturing older brother Carl (the excellent Stanley Bahorek) who introduces her to queer classics like “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall, and encourages Martha to pursue lofty learning goals.
Zoe Mann’s Martha is just how you might imagine the young Vogel – bright, searching, and a tad awkward.
As the play moves through the decades, Martha becomes an increasingly confident young lesbian before sliding comfortably into early middle age. Over time, her attitude toward her mother becomes more sympathetic. It’s a convincing and pleasing performance.
Phyllis is big on appearances, mainly her own. She has good taste and a sharp eye for thrift store and Goodwill finds including Chanel or a Von Furstenberg wrap dress (which looks smashing on Eastwood Norris, by the way), crowned with the blonde wig of the moment.
Time and place figure heavily into Vogel’s play. The setting is specific: “A series of apartments in Prince George’s and Montgomery County from 1964 to the 21st century, from subbasement custodial units that would now be Section 8 housing to 3-bedroom units.”
Krit Robinson’s cunning set allows for quick costume and prop changes as decades seamlessly move from one to the next. And if by magic, projection designer Shawn Boyle periodically covers the walls with scurrying roaches, a persistent problem for these renters.
Margot Bordelon directs with sensitivity and nuance. Her take on Vogel’s tragicomedy hits all the marks.
Near the play’s end, there’s a scene sometimes referred to as “The Phyllis Ballet.” Here, mother sits onstage silently in front of her dressing table mirror. She is removed of artifice and oozes a mixture of vulnerability but not without some strength. It’s longish for a wordless scene, but Bordelon has paced it perfectly.
When Martha arranges a night of family fun with mom and now out and proud brother at Lost and Found (the legendary D.C. gay disco), the plan backfires spectacularly. Not long after, Phyllis’ desire for outside approval resurfaces tenfold, evidenced by extreme discomfort when Carl, her favorite child, becomes visibly ill with HIV/AIDS symptoms.
Other semi-autobiographical plays from the DMV native’s oeuvre include “The Baltimore Waltz,” a darkly funny, yet moving piece written in memory of her brother (Carl Vogel), who died of AIDS in 1988. The playwright additionally wrote “How I Learned to Drive,” an acclaimed play heavily inspired by her own experiences with sexual abuse as a teenager.
“The Mother Play” made its debut on Broadway in 2024, featuring Jessica Lange in the eponymous role, earning her a Tony Award nomination.
Like other real-life matriarch inspired characters (Mary Tyrone, Amanda Wingfield, Violet Weston to name a few) Phyllis Herman seems poised to join that pantheon of complicated, women.
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