Arts & Entertainment
Starting the conversation
Whitman-Walker plans series of LGBT-specific health meetings
Whitman-Walker's June Crenshaw and Don Blanchon at a previous event. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Whitman-Walker Health is planning a series of LGBT-specific town hall-style events this year called Community Conversations. The first, slated for Thursday at the Clinic’s Elizabeth Taylor Center (1701 14th Street, NW), is dubbed “New Year, New Start: Substance Abuse.”
“Throughout our history, Whitman-Walker has worked to meet the unique health care needs of the LGBT community,” Don Blanchon, the Clinic’s executive director, said in a statement. “One of our goals … is to empower participants with the knowledge and resources to improve not only their health but the health of the family, friends and loved ones around them.”
Chip Lewis, the Clinic’s deputy director of communications, says the series was Blanchon’s idea and that he wanted “a mechanism to build this dialogue between Whitman-Walker and the community.” Chris Dyer, an LGBT liaison in former Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration, suggested the format.
Lewis says the staff hopes the series is a two-way street.
“It’s an opportunity to start a dialogue with the community about health issues it faces,” he says. “It can help us present the LGBT health issues that we service but we also want to hear from them and find out what they’re seeing and hearing about. It’s an opportunity for a dialogue for Whitman-Walker and the larger LGBT community as a whole.”
Thursday’s panelists are treatment advocate Jimmy Garza, addictions counselor Christina Oseth and nightlife impresario Ed Bailey. Moderator Josh Reilly is manager of addiction treatment programs for Whitman-Walker. The discussion starts at 7 p.m. It’s free and open to the pubic and those interested in attending will be directed to the meeting room from the front lobby.
Nine conversations are planned. A Feb. 23 discussion on “healthier hookups” will also be at the Elizabeth Taylor Center. On March 29, “Why Safe Sex Matters” will be held at the True Reformer Building and on April 30, “Aging and the LGBT Community” will be at the D.C. Center. Dates and locations are still being set for the remaining installments. Topics slated include “Women’s Health,” “Take Pride in Your Health,” “HIV Testing,” “I’m a Survivor: Living Long Term With HIV” and “Transgender Health.” Go to whitman-walker.org for more information. The Blade will also run details as they are announced.
Lewis says things are going well for the Clinic overall and he expects that it will soon be announced that 2011 was another successful year. It’s now operating “in the black” (there was a half-million-dollar surplus in 2010 Lewis says) after finishing 2007 and 2008 millions in the hole. The numbers for 2009 found the Clinic running a $750,000 deficit. Revenue sources have changed and Medicare, Medicaid and pharmacy sales have provided a more stable source of revenue, he says.
But misconceptions abound about the Clinic, Lewis says. A broadening of services has “de-gayed” the Clinic, some critics have claimed, but Lewis says a higher percentage of those seeking services today self-identity as LGBT than a few years ago (it’s about half, he says).
“You can come here for mental health, support groups, primary care, gynecological care — there was a sense for a long time that this was just where you went if you were facing HIV and AIDS and that’s never really been the case,” Lewis says. “[These Conversations] are another opportunity for us to get across to people that we offer a lot of health services.”
The Community Conversations are expected to last between one and two hours depending on the number of questions and comments.
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By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON, ISABEL STOKES, and BELLA SAYEGH | After appearing on the 11th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World,” the sixth season of “RuPaul’s All Stars” and now the 11th season of “All Stars,” Silky Nutmeg Ganache, known by many as the Reverend, is undoubtedly a legend.
Born and raised in Moss Point, Miss., Ganache bears all in this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton.” She speaks about her relationship with gender, her 100-pound weight loss, what it’s like living as a queer person of color in a red state and why she’s calling on allies to stand up for the trans community.
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Theater
‘My Favorite Sociopath’ debuts at Shepherdstown’s CATF
Gay playwright Aurin Squire’s take on D.C. journalism in the ‘90s
‘My Favorite Sociopath’
Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 10-Aug. 2
Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Catf.org
Discernment. It’s a thing some people have, explains playwright Aurin Squire, especially when you’re gay or Black in America (Squire is both).
“You instinctively know when the mob is teaming up for the best interests of the powers that be. You can feel it in the air.”
In his sharp new satire “My Favorite Sociopath,” Squire writes about life experiences but set in a different time and place: It’s the 1990s, early days of the 24-hour news cycle, and three ambitious journalism students are pursuing success in D.C.
And now, Squire’s play, along with other new works, are making their world premieres at the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in historic, queer-friendly Shepherdstown, W.Va. (just a 90-minute drive from D.C.).
“All of my plays are queer in some way,” says Squire, 46. “This one touches on harmless and dangerous lies. The characters are on the spectrum sexually, and it’s interesting how all that falls out.”
And he’s given it a lot of thought.
“Already as a kid, it seemed to me that the rage against rap music and sex was coming from closeted people resisting their own urges and temptations. For me, it was interesting to see a witch hunt led by witches. Queer people can always call out a lie.”
Since September, Squire has also been working with a TV show about the tech industry set in Silicon Valley. He says, “It seems the general flow of the tech industry is that humanity and civilization is finished and it’s just about accumulating as many goods as possible before everything collapses. In fact, those who are profiting actually agree. But for those who disagree, they believe the solution is to build bigger gates, but activists believe we can stop this”
Yet, he’s learned from folks associated with the show. “Many say the quickest way to divorce yourself from any responsibility or regulations — smash and grab. Otherwise, you have to stop and think and regulate your desires for greed and power”
Squire possesses a penchant for pithy titles. He laughs, explaining the first thing he wrote as a student at Juilliard was “Obama-ology,” the comedy with contemporary message. While a lot of people liked the name, it didn’t necessarily vibe with the author. He concedes that he chooses names based on “easy to remember” and titles that won’t be easy to lose as a file.
Another is “Defacing Michael Jackson,” a coming-of-age dramedy set in rural Florida in 1984, specifically Squire’s native town Opa-locka, Miami, a fantastical place famed for its fanciful Moorish revival architecture.
Living in the shadow of exotic structures, he wasn’t particularly fazed. Squire says “It wasn’t until returning to visit after my freshman year at Northwestern University in Chicago that I realized how weird it was: When you grow up in a place, you take surroundings for granted no matter how over the top.”
Now based in New York (where for two happy years, 2017-2019, he shared digs with drag king Murry Hill), Squire returns frequently to Miami to be with family, but this summer has been filled with both work and travel.
Currently, he’s in Shepherdstown with CATF shaping up “My Favorite Sociopath.” Later this summer he will travel to South Africa for research, followed by a silent writing retreat in Santa Fe, N.M.
Much of Squire’s work reflects the Latino, African, Caribbean, African-American, and Jewish cultures he grew up around in South Florida.
When asked if today’s winds of anti-multiculturalism worry him, he replies, “No, because that’s going to pass. Most people don’t like, people are seeing the negative results of it, and the young people coming up despise it. White male gamers were tricked momentarily through the algorithms into voting against their own interests and they’re now seeing how it’s not working out for them.
“Conservatives always try to stop progress and eventually they always lose. It’s just a question of where we’ll be in the middle of the end of civilization before that happens. I’d like to hope we can turn the ship around before then.”
In addition to “My Favorite Sociopath,” CATF summer season features three other world premieres (Lisa D’Amour’s comedy “The Smoker,” “Refugee Rhapsody” by Yussef El Guindi, “Best Line Wins: A Play Inspired by the Improvised Lives of Elaine May & Mike Nichols” by Beth Kander) and “¡VOS!” by Christina Pumariega.
CATF runs from July 10-Aug. 2 in three venues on the Shepherd University campus: Frank Center, Marinoff Theater, and Studio 112.
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