Arts & Entertainment
Rainbow Families conference returns in person this weekend
‘Inspiration, togetherness and a feeling of empowerment’
A Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization that works to empower LGBTQ-headed households will host its annual conference for the first time in person since the COVID-19 pandemic began, on Saturday, May 14 at Barrie School in Silver Spring, Md.
Rainbow Families will host a daylong event —themed “Together Again”— that will feature informative workshops, community building activities and speakers such as Democratic state Sen. Zach Wahls from Iowa.
There will also be an award ceremony where CEO of Whitman-Walker Health Naseema Shafi will be named “Hero of the Year,” in recognition of her leadership and service to improving and growing health services for LGBTQ people in the D.C. area, according to a press release from the organization.
Shafi will be the fourth recipient of the award, following past winners, including Michele Zavos, one of the organization’s founders, and Ellen Kahn, senior director of programs and partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign.
“[We choose] someone who has been instrumental in leadership and change, and [given] more hope and inspiration in the past year or so,” said Darren Vance, executive director of Rainbow Families. “While our lane is all things families, we also include trailblazers for helping expand our rights and our laws.”
The main attraction at the conference will be the educational seminars. There will be as many as 30 workshops that discuss timely LGBTQ issues such as parenting and legislation, including what the leaked draft opinion on the future of Roe v. Wade —a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that protects a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction— could mean for the LGBTQ community.
Vance acknowledges that this topic is pertinent for discussion at the conference and it will be included in the opening ceremony. However, because the conference’s program was planned months ago and information about the fate of Roe v. Wade is new, reorganizing the conference to primarily focus on it would be challenging.
“We really plan to focus on that topic once we have all the information,” he said. “Everybody right now is seeing a barrage of news and social media posts about it and we want to be able to come at it with some real analysis.”
One of the educational seminars, however, will focus on the legal aspects of creating a family, and it will be led by Jennifer Fairfax, a Maryland-based adoption attorney who has worked on LGBTQ family planning.
“She will certainly be incorporating [issues about same-sex marriage],” said Vance.
With the conference just days away, Vance is focused on the LGBTQ community’s ability to gather and celebrate itself. However, he hopes for conference attendees to gain three things.
“I want them [to leave with] inspiration, togetherness and a feeling of empowerment,” he said.
Star of “Pose” Dominique Jackson was the special guest at the vogue party “Kunty” on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Bunker. DJ Mascari provided the music.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Theater
‘Acting their asses off’ in ‘Exception to the Rule’
Studio production takes place during after-school detention
‘Exception to the Rule’
Through Sunday, October 27
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.
$40-$95
Studiotheatre.org
After-school detention is a bore, but it’s especially tiresome on the last day of classes before a holiday.
In Dave Harris’s provocative new play “Exception to the Rule” (now at Studio Theatre) that’s just the case.
It’s Friday, and the usual suspects are reporting to room 111 for detention before enjoying the long MLK weekend. First on the scene are blaring “bad girl” Mikayla (Khalia Muhammad) and nerdy stoner Tommy (Stephen Taylor Jr.), followed by mercurial player Dayrin (Jacques Jean-Mary), kind Dasani (Shana Lee Hill), and unreadable Abdul (Khouri St.Surin).
The familiar is jaw-droppingly altered by the entrance of “College Bound Erika” (Sabrina Lynne Sawyer), a detention first timer whose bookworm presence elicits jokes from the others: What happened? You fail a test?
Dasani (who’s teased for being named for designer water) dubs Erika “Sweet Pea” and welcomes her to the rule-breaking fold. Together the regulars explain how detention works: The moderator, Mr. Bernie, shows up, signs their slips, and then they go. But today the teacher is tardy.
As they wait, the kids pass the time laughing, trash talking, flirting, and yelling. When not bouncing around the classroom, Dayrin is grooming his hair, while Dasani endlessly reapplies blush and lip gloss. At one point two boys almost come to blows, nearly repeating the cafeteria brawl that landed them in detention in the first place.
It’s loud. It’s confrontational. And it’s funny.
Erika is naively perplexed: “I thought detention was quiet. A place where everyone remembers the mistakes that got them here and then learns how to not make the same mistakes again.”
For room 111, the only connection to the outside world is an increasingly glitchy and creepy intercom system. Announcements (bus passes, the school’s dismal ranking, the impending weekend lockdown, etc.) are spoken by the unseen but unmistakably stentorian-voiced Craig Wallace.
Dave Harris first conceived “Exception to the Rule” in 2014 during his junior year at Yale University. In the program notes, the Black playwright describes “Exception to the Rule” as “a single set / six actors on a stage, just acting their asses off.” It’s true, and they do it well.
Miranda Haymon is reprising their role as director (they finely helmed the play’s 2022 off-Broadway debut at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York). Haymon orchestrates a natural feel to movement in the classroom, and without entirely stilling the action on stage (makeup applying, scribbling, etc.), the out director gives each member of the terrific cast their revelatory moment. In a busy room, we learn that Tommy’s goofiness belies trauma, that Mikayla is admirably resourceful, and most startling, why Erika, the school’s top student, is in detention.
Mr. Bernie is clearly a no-show. And despite his absence, the regulars are bizarrely loath to leave the confines of 111 for fear of catching yet another detention. Of course, it’s emblematic of something bigger. Still, things happen within the room.
While initially treated as a sort of mascot, awkwardly quiet Erika becomes rather direct in her questions and observations. Suddenly, she’s rather stiffly doling out unsolicited advice.
It’s as if an entirely new person has been thrown into the mix.
Not all of her guidance goes unheeded. Take fighting for instance. At Erika’s suggestion, St.Surin’s Abdul refrains from kicking Dayrin’s ass. (Just feet from the audience gathered for a recent matinee in Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Abdul’s frustration resulting from anger while yearning for a world of principled order is palpable as evidenced when a single tear rolled down the actor’s right cheek)
Set designer Tony Cisek renders a no-frills classroom with cinder block walls, a high and horizontal row of frosted fixed windows that become eerily prison like when overhead fluorescent lighting is threateningly dimmed.
Still, no matter how dark, beyond the classroom door, a light remains aglow, encouraging the kids to ponder an exit plan.
The Washington Commanders are proud to welcome the LGBTQ community for the fourth annual “Pride Night Out!” on Sunday, Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md.
This will be a matchup against the Cleveland Browns. The Pregame Pride Party Pass and Club level game ticket includes premier party location and club level ticket all-you-can-eat buffet, beer and wine, an exclusive Commanders Pride T-shirt, pregame entertainment and a postgame photo on the field.
More ticket options are available and $5 of every ticket goes back to Team DC. For more information visit the Commanders’ website.