‘Octet’
Through Feb. 26
Studio Theatre
1501 14th Street, N.W.
Tickets start at $55
Studiotheatre.org

David Malloy’s “Octet” delves deep into the depths of digital addiction. 

Featuring a person ensemble, this extraordinary a capella chamber musical explores the lives of recovering internet addicts whose lives have been devastated by digital dependency; sharing what’s happened and how things have changed. 

Dressed in casual street clothes, the “Friends of Saul” trickle into a church all-purpose room, check their cell phones in a basket, put away the bingo tables, and arrange folding chairs into a circle. Some may stop by a side table offering cookies, tea, and coffee before taking a seat. 

The show opens with “The Forest,” a haunting hymn harking back to the good old days of an analog existence before glowing screens, incessant pings and texts.

“The forest was beautiful/ My head was clean and clear/Alone without fear/ The forest was safe/ I danced like a beautiful fool / One time some time.”

Mimicking an actual step meeting, there’s a preamble. And then the honest sharing begins, complete with accounts of sober time and slips.

Eager to share, Jessica (Chelsea Williams) painfully recalls being cancelled after the video of her public meltdown went viral. Henry (Angelo Harrington II) is a gay gamer with a Candy Crush problem. Toby (Adrian Joyce) a nihilist who needs to stay off the internet sings “So anyway/ I’m doing good/ Mostly/ Limiting my time/ Mostly.”

The group’s unseen founder Saul is absent, per usual.

In his stead Paula, a welcoming woman played with quiet compassion by Tracy Lynn Olivera, leads. She and her husband no longer connect. They bring screens to bed. In a love-lost ballad, she explains: “We don’t sleep well/ My husband I/ Our circadian rhythms corrupted/ By the sallow blue glow of a screen/ Sucking souls and melatonin/ All of my dreams have been stolen.”

After too much time spent arguing with strangers on the internet, Marvin, a brainy young father played by David Toshiro Crane, encounters the voice of a God. 

Ed (Jimmy Kieffer) deals with a porn addiction. Karly (Ana Marcu) avoids dating apps, a compulsion compared to her mother’s addiction to slot machines.

Malloy, who not only wrote the music but also the smart lyrics, book, and inventive vocal arrangements, brilliantly joins isolation with live harmony. It’s really something. 

And helmed by David Muse, “Octet” is a precisely, quietly, yet powerfully staged production, featuring a topnotch cast who (when not taking their moment in the spotlight) use their voices to make sounds and act as a sort of Greek chorus. Mostly on stage throughout all of the 100-minute one act, they demonstrate impressive stamina and concentration. 

An immersive production, “Octet” invites audience members to feel a part of the meeting. Studio’s Shargai Theatre is configured, for the first, in the round. And like the characters, patrons must also unplug. Everyone is required to have their phones locked in a small pouch (that only ushers are able to open and close), so be prepared for a wee bit of separation anxiety. 

At the end of the meeting, the group surrenders somnambulantly. They know they are powerless against internet addiction. But group newbie Velma (Amelia Aguilar) isn’t entirely convinced. She remembers the good tech times.

In a bittersweet moment, she shares of an online friendship with “a girl in Sainte Marie / Just like me.” 

Habits aren’t easily shaken.

In the current media and political climate, stories of trans suffering move quickly. Stories of trans ambition do not.

A trans teenager denied healthcare. A trans woman attacked on public transit. A trans man struggling with homelessness. These narratives circulate widely, often accompanied by solemn op-eds, viral posts, and carefully worded statements of concern. The pain is real. The coverage is necessary. But there is a quieter pattern beneath it: trans people are most readily accepted when they are framed as victims—and most resisted when they present themselves as agents with desire, confidence, and upward momentum.

This distinction has sharpened in recent years. As anti-trans legislation has proliferated across statehouses and election cycles have turned trans lives into talking points, the public script has narrowed. Trans people are legible as objects of harm, but far less comfortable to many audiences as subjects of ambition. Survival is tolerated. Aspiration is destabilizing.

The reason suffering travels more easily is not mysterious. Pain reassures the audience. It positions trans people as recipients of concern rather than participants in competition. A suffering subject does not threaten status hierarchies; they confirm them. Sympathy can be extended without requiring a recalibration of power, space, or expectations. In this framing, acceptance remains conditional and charitable.

Ambition disrupts that arrangement. A trans person who wants more than safety—who wants money, authority, visibility, creative control, or institutional influence—forces a different reckoning. Ambition implies permanence. It implies entitlement. It implies that trans people are not passing through society’s margins but intend to occupy its center alongside everyone else.

You can see this discomfort play out in real time. When trans people speak about wanting success rather than safety, the response often shifts. Confidence is scrutinized. Assertiveness is reframed as arrogance. Desire is recoded as delusion. The language changes quickly: “unstable,” “narcissistic,” “out of touch,” “ungrateful.” In public discourse, confidence in trans people is frequently treated not as a strength, but as a warning sign.

Media narratives reinforce this dynamic. Even ostensibly positive coverage often relies on redemption arcs that center suffering first and ambition second—if at all. Success is framed as overcoming transness rather than inhabiting it. A trans person can be praised for resilience, but rarely for dominance, excellence, or command. Achievement must be softened, contextualized, and made reassuring.

This is especially visible in cultural reactions to trans people who refuse modesty. Trans figures who express sexual confidence, professional competitiveness, or political authority routinely face backlash that their cis counterparts do not. They are accused of being “too much,” of asking for too much space, of wanting too much too fast. The underlying anxiety is not about tone; it is about proximity. Ambition collapses the safe distance between observer and observed.

Politically, this preference for suffering over ambition is costly. Movements anchored primarily in pain narratives struggle to articulate futures beyond harm reduction. They mobilize sympathy but have difficulty sustaining leadership. A politics that can only argue from injury is perpetually reactive, always responding to the next threat rather than shaping the terrain itself.

This matters in a moment when trans rights are no longer debated only in cultural terms but in administrative, legal, and economic ones. Influence now depends on institutional literacy, long-term strategy, and the willingness to occupy decision-making spaces that were never designed with trans people in mind. Ambition is not a luxury; it is a prerequisite for durability.

Yet ambition remains suspect. Trans people are encouraged to be grateful rather than demanding, visible rather than powerful, resilient rather than authoritative. Even within progressive spaces, there is often an unspoken expectation that trans people justify their presence through pain rather than through competence or vision.

This is not liberation. It is containment.

A society that can tolerate trans suffering but recoils at trans ambition is not offering equality; it is managing discomfort. It is willing to mourn trans deaths but uneasy about trans dominance, trans leadership, or trans desire that does not ask permission. It prefers trans people as evidence of harm rather than as evidence of possibility.

None of this is an argument against documenting suffering. That work remains essential, particularly as legal protections erode and violence persists. But suffering cannot be the only admissible register of trans life. A politics that cannot imagine trans people as ambitious cannot sustain trans people as free.

Ambition does not negate vulnerability. Desire does not erase harm. Wanting more than survival is not ingratitude—it is the baseline condition of citizenship. The question is not whether trans people deserve ambition. The question is why it remains so unsettling when they claim it.

Until that discomfort is confronted, acceptance will remain conditional. Sympathy will remain cheap. And trans futures will continue to be negotiated on terms that stop just short of power.

Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him on Instagram at @isaacamend

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected]. 

The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ+ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success. 

Congratulations to David Reid on his new position as Principal, Public Policy, with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Upon being named to the position, he said, “I am proud to be part of this inaugural group of principals as the firm launches it new ‘principal, public policy’ title.”

Reid is a political strategist and operative. He is a prolific fundraiser, and skilled advocate for legislative and appropriations goals. He is deeply embedded in Democratic politics, drawing on his personal network on the Hill, in governors’ administrations, and throughout the business community, to build coalitions that drive policy successes for clients. His work includes leading complex public policy efforts related to infrastructure, hospitality, gaming, health care, technology, telecommunications, and arts and entertainment.

Reid has extensive political finance experience. He leads Brownstein’s bipartisan political operation each cycle with Republican and Democratic congressional and national campaign committees and candidates. Reid is an active member of Brownstein’s pro-bono committee and co-leads the firm’s LGBT+ Employee Resource Group.

He serves as a Deputy National Finance Chair of the Democratic National Committee and is a member of the Finance Committee of the Democratic Governors Association, where he previously served as the Deputy Finance Director.

Prior to joining Brownstein, Reid served as the Washington D.C. and PAC finance director at Hillary for America. He worked as the mid-Atlantic finance director, for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and ran the political finance operation of a Fortune 50 global health care company.

Among his many outside involvements, Reid serves on the executive committee of the One Victory, and LGBTQ Victory Institute board, the governing bodies of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute; and is a member of the board for Q Street. 

Congratulations also to Yesenia Alvarado Henninger of Helion Energy, president; Abigail Harris of Honeywell; Alex Catanese of American Bankers Association; Stu Malec, secretary; Brendan Neal, treasurer; Brownstein’s David Reid; Amazon’s Suzanne Beall; Lowe’s’ Rob Curis; andCornerstone’s Christian Walker. Their positions have now been confirmed by the Q Street Board of Directors.