Connect with us

Obituary

Beloved ‘organizer, planner’ Ryan Moberly Bennett dies at 37

Worked as lighting DJ at Town, Nation

Published

on

Ryan McMillan Moberly Bennett (Photo courtesy Cunningham Funeral Home)

Ryan McMillan Moberly Bennett, a longtime resident of Falls Church, Va., who served as a lighting DJ at the D.C. gay nightclubs Nation and Town Danceboutique and assisted with stage lighting design for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, died peacefully in his sleep on Dec. 9, 2021, at the age of 37, according to his husband Rick Bennett.

Rick Bennett said the cause of death is pending the outcome of toxicology tests from the Virginia Medical Examiner that could take several months to complete.

“Anyone who has met Ryan will tell you he was the most generous, giving, and energetic person,” a write-up about his life prepared by his husband and other family members and friends says. “He was the life of the party, and the hostess with the most-est,” the write-up continues.

It says his hosting of Friday night RuPaul’s night gatherings got him through the pandemic years, and his co-hosting of an annual XMAS Thieves party with his husband Rick was celebrated for the 16th time in early December.

“He spent his life welcoming people to the table; he could (and would) always find room for one more,” the memorial write-up about his life says, which is posted on the website of the Alexandria-based Cunningham Turch Funeral Home. “His table was never too full, and those of us who are lucky enough to have been seated at his table will keep welcoming others in his spirit.”

According to his husband Rick Bennett, Ryan was born and raised in Falls Church and attended Falls Church High School, where he graduated in 2002. He studied culinary arts for a few years before graduating from Northern Virginia’s Stratford University with a degree in Hospitality Management. Ryan worked in the field of property management for most of his career, Rick Bennett said.

He said that during the past two years, Ryan served as an assistant executive property manager for Carydale Apartments, a local company that serves as property manager for apartment buildings and town homes in Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax counties.

In earlier years, his work for more than 14 years as a lighting DJ at Nation and Town Danceboutique nightclubs, which have since closed, “was a huge part of Ryan’s social circle,” Rick Bennett said. “He loved being in the DL booth creating exciting light shows for the dancers but also working with the drag queens,” Bennett said. “The last few years at Town he worked behind the stage with the drag queens to make sure the shows ran smoothly.”

Jarrod Bennett, technical director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, said Ryan was considered a valued member of the GMCW family.

“He was always willing to help with lighting designs for shows, bringing a spark to our annual retreat decorations, assisting with sound reinforcement, ensuring our pride float was powered and pumping out the tunes and so much more,” Jarrod Bennett said. “Ryan’s dedication to GMCW was truly amazing and his presence will be missed. Our hearts go out t his husband, Rick Bennett, and his family.”

Rick Bennett said he and Ryan would have celebrated their 18th anniversary as a couple on April 10 of this year. He said the two met when Ryan was 20 and he was 24.

“Ryan was my everything and truly balanced me,” Rick Bennett said. “He had the most caring and empathetic nature, always wanting to help anyone who needed it. He was also the organizer, planner, and leader when it came to vacations, parties, and getting our sometimes-disparate groups of friends all together,” Rick Bennett added.

“He wanted everyone to know they were welcomed,” said Rick Bennett. “We loved to host, and Ryan would cook up the most amazing dinners. He was our friends’ ‘mama’ since day 1.”

The write-up posted on the funeral home website says the love Ryan shared with everyone had its roots in his family. “Ryan deeply loved his family and was deeply loved by them,” it says.

“Mama, as his closest family group of friends called him, was the organizer, the planner, and always the driver,” according to the write-up. “The scale of his abilities was wide and varied: from installing stereos for friends to designing and providing lighting setups for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington to cooking batches of Grandma’s BBQ sauce and Mom’s Martha Bars, Ryan was someone for whom a creative spark came naturally,” says the write-up.

“Ryan was always unapologetically himself. We are all better for having known him and we will mourn his loss for years to come,” the write-up concludes.

It says Ryan Moberly Bennett is survived by his husband, Rick Bennett; his parents, Bill and Cathy Moberly; his brother Evan Moberly; his sisters Laura Jones and Kristin Forsht; his nephews Harvey and McCarroll Moberly; and his grandmother, Jackie Fleming – along with many aunts, uncles and cousins.

A celebration of life service in his honor was held Dec. 18 at St. Matthews United Methodist Church in Annandale, Va., on the same day he was interred at National Memorial Park in Falls Church, Va.

Family and friends have said donations in his honor could be made to the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Obituary

Cheryl Jennings dies at 77

Rap Group, Passages founder and advocate for lesbian visibility

Published

on

Cheryl Jennings died peacefully on Oct. 11. (Photo courtesy of friends)

Cheryl Jennings died peacefully on Oct. 11 after a brief illness in hospice care in Rockville, Md., with friends at her side. She was 77.

Cheryl grew up in Tennessee, West Virginia, and Florida, according to a statement released by friends. She served in the U.S. Navy, where she used her eagle eyes as a photo intel specialist. After leaving the Navy, she majored in art at San Diego State University and had a career as a graphic designer and production coordinator. She moved to the Washington, D.C. area in the early 1980s. In 2002, she moved to Harper’s Ferry, W.Va. She returned to Rockville, Md. in 2024. 

A beautiful paradox of Cheryl’s life was being both a leader in many areas and an avowed introvert. Her gifts for bringing women together in the lesbian community and for sharing her love of the natural world with others shone through her, according to friends. But she also reveled in solitude while using her extensive artistic talent to capture natural beauty and whimsy, often by experimenting with new techniques. 

In the 1980s, when many lesbians were socially isolated, Cheryl provided a forum for connection and community as co-founder of a lesbian “rap” (discussion) group. The Rap Group met weekly to discuss issues relevant to lesbians at the time. Cheryl loosely based the group on the Parisian salons of the early 20th century. Many women formed lifelong friendships with Cheryl and other Rap Group attendees. Cheryl provided a safe, warm and welcoming space for lesbians at a time when being a lesbian could cost one a job, housing, or loss of family and friends. During her time as the host, she realized aging lesbians were nearly invisible and very vulnerable to mistreatment and were often silenced by mainstream society. So, Cheryl co-founded Passages, a groundbreaking organization that hosted annual conferences about lesbians and aging for over a decade in the D.C. area.

Another way Cheryl combined serving others and communing with nature was as a pioneer in letterboxing in Maryland and West Virginia. In this hobby, where art, nature, and outdoor adventure come together, Cheryl provided clues that others could follow through a natural area to find a box which she had hidden. She added her own artistic flair to this activity by carving her own rubber stamps for participants to use to register when they had found these boxes. Cheryl was interviewed about letterboxing and quoted under her hobby name “Squirrel” in several local publications. 

Along with her love of nature, Cheryl had a green thumb. Through study and volunteering, she became both a Master Gardener and a Master Naturalist. An active member of the Potomac Valley Audubon Society, she co-founded the Potomac Valley Master Naturalist program in 2006. She happily shared her knowledge by teaching classes and leading walks on subjects ranging from mushrooms to insects to vernal pools.

Cheryl traveled across West Virginia conducting dragonfly and butterfly studies as a volunteer for the state Division of Natural Resources. She was recognized in the spring 2006 West Virginia Odonate Atlas Newsletter for collecting the largest number of species of dragonflies in a statewide study. 

A gifted artist, Cheryl’s mediums included jewelry, ceramics, stained glass, leather, wood, watercolors, pencil and ink, acrylic, collage, assemblage, and photography.

After retiring at age 65, Cheryl took off in her camper van for her solo cross-country “Big Adventure.” She delighted in visiting and photographing parks and monuments from West Virginia to California and back.  

Cheryl believed in her friends and their ability to grow and create. “She lifted our spirits through her steadfast encouragement and by cracking us up,” according to the statement. “She mercilessly beat us at board and card games. She loved Tony Bennett’s singing and Mary Oliver’s poetry. A spiritual woman, she drew on goddess energy from many cultures and studied Hinduism in her last year of life.” 

She is predeceased by her parents, Von Jennings and Dorothy Jennings Blackwell and survived by her brother Todd Jennings and cousins. She is also survived by her friends: Catherine Small Stephens (and Dale, her husband), Jan DeRoche Kretz (and Lisa, her wife), and Mariann Seriff; her Potomac Valley naturalist crew in West Virginia; and many other friends in Maryland, West Virginia, and throughout the United States. 

A celebration of Cheryl’s life will be held in January 2025. Please email [email protected] to be notified when the date is set. 

Charitable contributions may be made to Potomac Valley Audubon Society and SAGE. 

Continue Reading

Obituary

George Jackson, dance critic and author, dies at 92

Longtime D.C. resident served as career scientist with U.S. government

Published

on

George Jackson (Courtesy photo)

Longtime D.C. resident George Jackson, a highly acclaimed dance critic and dance historian who wrote dance reviews for publications including the New York Times and the Washington Post — all while working in his day job as a microbiologist for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — died Aug. 5 of natural causes at the age of 92.

Friends said he passed away peacefully in his sleep in New York City, where he recently moved to be close to his husband and partner of many years, dance photographer Costas Cacaroukas, who shared Jackson’s intense interest in the performing art of dance, especially ballet.

Biographical write-ups on Jackson show he was born in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 10, 1931, and placed on a train by his parents in 1938 at the age of 7 and sent to London to be with cousins to escape the Nazi invasion of Austria as a member of a Jewish family. His birth name was Hans Georg Jakobowicz, which he later Americanized to George Jackson.

He was reunited with his parents, and the family moved to Chicago, where he grew up and saw his first dance performance at the age of 14 “and fell in love with the art form,” according to a 2021 tribute to Jackson by the publication Dance View Times. It says Jackson continued to patronize dance performances and later became a student at the University of Chicago, where he studied microbiology and became a microbiologist.

In a December 2011 interview with the Washington City Paper, Jackson said he took ballet lessons before starting his studies at the University of Chicago. He said the editor of the student newspaper had heard he was interested in dance and asked him to write dance reviews for the paper. “That’s how I got started,” he told the City Paper.

Jackson said in the interview that he moved to Washington “because a very good job opened with the Food and Drug Administration,” where he soon began work as a food parasitologist, which was his specialty.

He said around that time he was writing dance reviews for the publications Dance News and Dance magazine before both the Washington Post and then Washington Star invited him to do dance reviews. He said he began doing reviews first for the Star, which has since gone out of business, and then for the Post.

Although he started doing dance reviews in D.C. around 1972, Jackson told the City Paper he wrote his first review in 1950. Since then, according to a write-up by fellow dance critic and author Alastair Macaulay, Jackson’s reviews as well as essays about dance, have appeared in multiple publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Dance View, Dance Magazine, Dance Now, the German magazine Balliett, “and many others.”

The Dance View Times tribute to Jackson says, “He used his scientist’s eye and analytical mind to comment on what he saw but his writing is vivid, descriptive as well as analytical.”

In his Washington City Paper interview in December 2011, Jackson announced he was retiring as a dance critic at that time at the age of 80. But he said he was not about to stop writing.

To the delight of many of his followers, Jackson went on to write two historic novels, one in 2014 called “King of Jerusalem,” a fictional account of the life of Otto von Habsburg, the last crown prince of Austria-Hungry and heir to the ancient title of King of Jerusalem. The second novel, published in 2018, “Burn Berlin, Burn,” is a fictional mystery account of who the arsonist was in the 1933 burning of the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin at the time of the Nazi takeover of Germany.

Both books, in paperback and that remain available through Amazon, bear the name of Hans Georg Jakobowicz, Jackson’s birth name, as the author.

“Many of us also knew George as a figure of great courtesy,” fellow dance critic and author Macauley says in his Aug. 14. tribute to Jackson. “He never seemed to proclaim the importance of his opinions, but he was eager to share enthusiasm and information, historical information not the least.”  

Jackson is survived by his husband Costas Cacaroukas of New York and many friends in Washington, across the nation, and in Europe. No immediate plans have been announced for a memorial service or celebration of life.

Continue Reading

Obituary

D.C. theater community mourns passing of H. Lee Gable

Served as director, producer, administrator for more than three decades

Published

on

(Courtesy photo)

H. Lee Gable, a well-known figure in the D.C. theater community for more than 30 years and was the founding Artistic Director of D.C.’s Rainbow Theatre Project, died suddenly on July 26, 2024, according to a statement released by Rainbow Theatre Project publicist Alexandra Nowicki.

The statement says Gable, 62, served as artistic director for the Rainbow Theatre Project from the time of its founding in 2013 to 2022. The project describes itself on its website as a “premier theatre for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer (LGBTQ) community in the Nation’s Capital by presenting plays and musicals that reflect the unique experiences, interests and history of the LGBTQ community.”

According to the statement, Gable’s longstanding involvement in theatrical endeavors includes administrative positions with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Washington Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Studio Theatre, and the Helen Hayes Awards.

It says he served as Founding Artistic Director for the Phoenix Theatre from 1998 to 2000, and as Director for the Washington Shakespeare Company from 2004 to 2006. He also served as Managing Director for the Washington Shakespeare Company for its 2006 to 2007 season, where he directed the plays “The Night of the Iguana,” “The Children’s Hour,” and “Private Lives,” the statement says.

For the Phoenix Theater, Gable directed the plays “Inside/Out,” “The White House Murder Case,” and “3 by Sylvia.” As if that were not enough, it says he directed the plays “God of Hell” for the Didactic Theatre and “Ballycastle” for the Source Theatre Festival.

It adds that for the Rainbow Theatre Project, Gable directed the plays “Get Used To It” and “In The Closet.”

The statement says at the time of his death, Gable was serving as a treasurer for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It says a memorial service is being planned for this autumn. 

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular