Arts & Entertainment
A place to call home
Wanda Alston House for LGBT youth to launch foundation
Brian Watson at the Wanda Alston House. (Washington Blade file photo by Henry Linser)
The Wanda Alston House has helped support homeless LGBT youth throughout the last five years. Now, with Transgender Health Empowerment’s (THE) bankruptcy, the Alston House needs some support of its own.
The Wanda Alston Foundation formed in July to financially aid the Alston House in the wake of THE’s collapse. The foundation hosts its official launch reception and first fundraiser at MOVA Lounge (2204 14th St., N.W.) Tuesday from 5:30-8 p.m. The kick-off reception also celebrates the Alston House’s fifth year anniversary.
Christopher Dyer (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“It’s a unique program and we’d love to have as much support as we can from the community about this,” says Christopher Dyer, president of the Wanda Alston Foundation. “We’re getting grants, we’re up and running and we’d love to have as much support, in terms of volunteers and financially, as we possibly can.”
At the Alston House’s inception, the Department of Health and Human Services provided funding for the shelter combined with help from THE’s services to aid homeless LGBT youth. After THE’s bankruptcy, Alston House needed additional funding. Former THE Director of Programming Brian Watson oversees the Alston House and sought funding through a sponsor. The foundation was formed to administer the grants needed to keep the program running as well as the program itself.
“It’s a good foundation to start because it’s sourcing money more directly to Wanda Alston. There was some fundraising effort but it’s complicated to describe fundraising to donors. Now the foundation is pretty clear,” Dyer says.
Alston House, named after Wanda Alston, a lesbian activist who was murdered in Washington in 2006, is a renovated multi-bedroom house located in the Deanwood neighborhood of Northeast’s seventh Ward. It opened after THE noticed an increase of LGBT youth at its drop-in center. The house has assisted about 50 people ages 16-24 over the last five years. Eight people now reside in the home, the maximum amount allowed at one time. It is the only program designed to provide services for homeless at-risk LGBT youth in the District.
The house is always full excluding when rooms are being cleaned for new residents. Residents are required to go to school or have a job while staying in the house. They are allowed to stay up to 18 months. Former residents have gone on to attend college, move into their own places or returned home to their families. The board’s secretary, Xion Lopez, is a former Wanda Alston House resident. She lived there for about 13 months from the end of 2011 until January of this year. She joined the board last month after being told it would be advantageous to have the perspective of a former resident and transgender person on the board.
Xion Lopez (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“This is a service that is definitely needed,” Lopez, 22, says. “Homelessness continues to grow and these are our children out there suffering through this. They’re forced into all kinds of things from drugs to prostitution to even jail, just to survive. Some don’t mind going to jail because they see that as a safety net. But we’re here to help. Do what you need to do to get on the waiting list. That’s what we’re here for.”
A paid staff that includes a full-time executive director, program director and administrator coordinator controls the day-to-day activities. The house also has trained adult supervisors qualified to oversee the special needs of a homeless shelter. The board approves each staff member hired.
The board focuses primarily on the fiscal and government oversight of the organization. The nine members work together to determine policies such as which grants are important and feasible to apply for and which are not. Approximately 90 percent of their revenue comes from D.C. administrated grants.
Lopez says she had an overall great experience at the Alston House. Among her fellow residents, several have moved on to school, one is studying abroad, two others are out on their own with full-time jobs, another got married and had a child.
“We have lots of success stories,” she says.
Now living on her own in Hyattsville, Md., Lopez says there were occasionally tensions within the house, but a high emphasis was placed on working through tension.
“You put eight LGBT young people in a house together, of course it’s not going to be all rainbows everyday,” she says. “There were some hormones and attitudes that collided but for the most part we had good relationships with each other and things that needed to be worked out were brought to the forefront. We never closed out a week with things not being addressed.”
Funding from the city has been steady over the years. The organization’s budget is about $400,000 per year. It includes the $60,000 spent on renting the house per year. The fundraising efforts have just begun and start with the reception on Tuesday. Dyer admits that the board is still figuring out how to organize “an infrastructure for donor maintenance.”
Dyer’s support for Alston House and his collaboration with Watson began five years ago when he worked as an LGBT liaison for former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. Watson secured funding for the Alston House from the D.C. City Council while Dyer served under Fenty’s administration in 2007. He became president of the Wanda Alston House Foundation board during the foundation’s first meeting in August.
The board has already made strides as an organization as they recently moved their operation from inside the Alston House to an administrative office downtown. Eventually, the board would like to expand the program so more clients can find help.
“We’re so new our board is much more active as opposed to a board that meets once every two or three months and just writes checks,” Dyer says. “We’re more intimately involved in the strategic direction of the organization.”
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.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
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.
PHOTOS: The Holiday Show
The best books to give this holiday season
Studio’s ‘Mother Play’ draws from lesbian playwright’s past
Choose U ambassadors share lived experiences with HIV, personal reflections, and insights
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
EXCLUSIVE: George Santos speaks out on prison, Trump pardon, and more
Victory Institute honors transgender Spanish senator in D.C.
The beginning of the fall of Trump
Markey reintroduces International Human Rights Act in Senate
