Arts & Entertainment
Black lesbian event has final party this weekend
Alexander-Reid saw Women in the Life evolve into non-profit over 18 years
Sheila Alexander-Reid is discontinuing her Women in the Life events after this weekend
Lesbian activist and events promoter Sheila Alexander-Reid has announced she’s stepping down from heading the D.C.-based Women in the Life Association after 18 years. It concludes with a bounty of activities this weekend.
A party being billed as “The Last First Friday” is tonight from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. at the Loft at the Warehouse (4th and Penn streets, N.E. off New York Avenue). An open mic night was held Thursday night. On Saturday, a cocktail reception will be held at Martin’s Lounge at 1919 9th St. (near 9th and U) from 7-11 p.m. featuring singer/songwriter Angie Head. Admission to tonight’s party is $20. Saturday’s is $15. Visit lastfirstfriday.com for more information.
Women in the Life has been mostly inactive for the last year. Alexander-Reid said many of the factors that contributed to the group’s founding are moot points now. She’s also at a different time and age in her own life, she said.
“I’m quite frankly just tired,” she said. “I’m hearing from all over the country people saying, ‘You can’t let this die, it needs to continue,’ and so on. When we started there was more of a need for safe spaces for professional lesbians of color to get together, raise visibility in the greater LGBT community … some of the main reasons we started are no longer needed. There are other needs that I’d eventually like to address, things like mental health concerns, obesity, smoking, but right now I’m taking a break. It remains to be seen if this is just a hiatus for Women in the Life or the end. It may come back in a different incarnation, but we’ll see. I’m open to that but I’m not committing to that.”
Bob Witeck, of Witeck-Combs Communication and a former Women in the Life board member, said it’s a different era in many ways from when Alexander-Reid formed the organization.
“She was pre-Internet,” he said. “None of us had these tools to connect the way we do now. I wouldn’t say she’s old school, but the place she held has changed and those gaps and vacuums are different than they used to be.”
Witeck said Alexander-Reid deserves high praise for her efforts.
“She fulfilled a pioneering leadership that is unparalleled,” he said. “There really isn’t a counterpart for the bridge that she built. Plus she’s just exciting to be around with her warmth and her curiosity. She’s a dynamo who changes and improves everything she touches.”
Women in the Life began as a for-profit events agency providing First Friday nightclub events for local black lesbians. Alexander-Reid said over the years, her crowd was typically between 75-80 percent black. It broadened into the scope of a non-profit in the early ’00s when she started publishing a newsletter/magazine for her regulars that was extraordinarily popular. After her friend, Wanda Alston, was murdered, she started Wanda’s Will Project to encourage lesbians to get wills in place. All along, Alexander-Reid maintained her job as a business development manager at City Paper. She said eventually Women in the Life got out of control and could have easily been a full-time job, so she pulled back.
“I feel good about what I accomplished,” she said. “But our community has so much more now and I’d like to take a break.”
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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