Latest / Queer Voices / September 30th - Actor Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Houston Cinema Arts Festival, and Deborah Hope

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September 30th - Actor Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Houston Cinema Arts Festival, and Deborah Hope · Queer Voices

• 0:02
  Brett: Welcome to Queer Voices.
• 0:04
  Brett: This show and podcast have been on KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston since the 70s.
• 0:09
  Brett: I am Brett Cullum, and this week I start off with non-binary actor Leonda Unadi Lewis Nyall, who is known as Sheriff Santiago in Netflix's supernatural mystery comedy Wednesday.
• 0:23
  Brett: They are in the new drama from queer as folk Russell T.
• 0:26
  Brett: Davies called Tiptoe.
• 0:28
  Brett: It also stars Alan Cummings, and it starts this Friday streaming on Stars.
• 0:34
  Brett: Then Matthew Williams talks with Michael Robinson about the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which lasts from October 1st through the 11th.
• 0:42
  Brett: And finally, I discuss Gloria Stein with Houston actress Deborah Hope, who is directing a play to honor her memory called Gloria Alife, which runs in Cyprus October 2nd through the 18th.
• 0:56
  Brett: Queer Voices starts now.
• 1:02
  Brett: Hi there, this is Brett Cullum.
• 1:04
  Brett: And known as Sheriff Rita Santiago in Netflix's supernatural mystery comedy, Wednesday, we have non-binary actor and writer Luanta Unari Lewis Meow.
• 1:16
  Brett: Is that even close?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was really close.
• 1:19
  Brett: Okay, good.
• 1:20
  Brett: Well, they have landed a new role on the chilling UK drama Tiptoe.
• 1:25
  Brett: And this is one I have been waiting for for months.
• 1:28
  Brett: Because I think it already aired in the UK, right?
• 1:30
  Brett: I mean, months ago.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it aired June.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: June?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was June.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was June.
• 1:36
  Brett: Well, finally, we found out Stars has it, and they are gonna put it out Friday, October 2nd.
• 1:42
  Brett: So Unadi is a creative force and a passionate LGBTQ plus advocate.
• 1:48
  Brett: So you bring a lot of intensity to every role that you take on.
• 1:51
  Brett: So I just wanted to welcome you.
• 1:53
  Brett: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, obviously.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: My my absolute pleasure.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:59
  Brett: Yeah.
• 2:00
  Brett: You know, your name is so beautiful.
• 2:02
  Brett: Where does it come from?
• 2:02
  Brett: Does it have a meaning?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my mom gave me the name Luanda, which in Zulu means the family is growing bigger and bigger.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then my grandmother gave me the second name, Unati, which means Christ is with us, or rather Ungulungulu is which uh is with us if you want to be more decolonial about its definition.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Umbingangi is with us.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then Lewis, uh, I'm separated from my ex-husband, so we double barreled his name first, my name last.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Yao means foot.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Clan of the foot.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, got a lot going on in there.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's just a lot going on.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh my grand landed up spending raising me when I was quite young, a little bit more so than my parents did while they were sort of like working on establishing themselves.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody calls me one Nati.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well great.
• 2:48
  Brett: Now, this news show on Stars, October 2nd, I keep plugging in because uh it's created by Russell Davies, who everybody knows as the creator of Queer's Folk.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 2:57
  Brett: Basically.
• 2:57
  Brett: And and of course he revived Doctor Who and all this other stuff.
• 3:01
  Brett: But Tiptoe, it's a story about two neighbors, one gay played by Alan Cummings, and one straight played by David Morrissey, and they kind of have a feud and it gets it gets pretty dark.
• 3:12
  Brett: Is that right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: It gets it gets pretty dark, yeah.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think Russell is with this particular project really just trying to sound a rallying cry um in the times that we kind of live in.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think, you know, often as a writer you you can write you write what you know and you write from your experience.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that right now in the commun even in the queer community, there are these kind of festering divisions beginning to grow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a reminder that, hey gang, you know, just because you're uh slightly more socially accepted at the minute, that can change really quickly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Those those rights were hard won, but they can take them away.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when they finish with our trans siblings, they'll come for you.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it'll it'll do you know what I mean?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is there is no safety here.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be the model queer because at the end of the day, you'll be queer and they'll and you'll be other who are stronger as a united community than a divided one.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Russell just does this so masterfully that he A makes it really compelling television.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: It moves at a pace.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he touches on so many relevant components to this conversation and but also just finds the humanity of these people.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think it really isn't that, you know, it's it's not our differences, really, it's our similarities regardless of which side of the conversation you lie on.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 4:34
  Brett: Well, Nadi, I am in the US and the transgender community is just completely under attack here.
• 4:41
  Brett: It's I do a segment at the end of the show where we talk about news, and I get so tired of talking about legislation now that is being put against them.
• 4:49
  Brett: And then I read a story where the BBC canceled RuPaul's Drag Race UK, and I saw like some of the contestants on there saying, you know, it's really bad for transgender individuals in the UK as well.
• 5:01
  Brett: Is that the case?
• 5:02
  Brett: What's happening with the UK?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: So in the UK, as um a black South African um who obviously grew up in a country that was colonized by the United Kingdom, I know that obviously Amerible kind of history of division.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, division is putting a very low point on it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But in my it from my experience, uh the UK has always been hair off of that, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's where, you know, like if if something is happening in the States, there is some other ch weird, sneaky, eurocratic way, polite way, the brutality of polite violence kind of way that it is happening here.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I think with the EHRC legislating against essentially the free movement of trans individuals in public spaces, really.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you can call it a bathroom ban all you like, but actually what it's actually what it's tantamount to is the legislation, the free movement of trans folks in and around uh the United Kingdom by essentially removing them from public life and saying that you you have no safety to do one of the most basic things that a human being can do in with dignity.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not safe for for anyone, and I don't think they're gonna stop there, you know?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't think they're necessarily going to stop there.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I've got trans friends who are struggling to find housing, and they've, you know, landlords are randomly without even looking at their application properly, pulling out of of renting to them the moment they hear that there could be trans people staying.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's just getting a little bit a little bit very, very, very unsafe.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think part of that is also, you know, what's been happening in the state.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these these two things work kind of hand in hand, in that now there is permission, it is permissible to punch down, to to be bigoted and and ultimately harm our trans siblings because they are not being seen as human, they're being dehumanized, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's a shame.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's more than a shame.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's terrifying.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that these conversations are really, really important to have, and Russell does an incredible job of humanizing people that really most people only have an experience of through the lens of the media, through the lens that they are targeting children, or you know, that they're mentally unwell, or whatever the or whatever the nasty rhetoric is.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Russell goes, No, actually, this is just a human being who like you wants joy to to have a roof over their head, survive, love, live, laugh.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Can't believe I quoted that film.
• 7:34
  Brett: Yeah.
• 7:36
  Brett: It's a good one though.
• 7:38
  Brett: It definitely sounds like it's a time for Russell Davies.
• 7:40
  Brett: And it sounds like it's time for a new statement from him.
• 7:43
  Brett: I mean, and he's definitely the one that I think that I had never seen the queer community represented as well until I saw Queer as Folk and his idea.
• 7:51
  Brett: And then this whole idea of him bringing the queer identities into Doctor Who and making it kind of a little bit more that.
• 7:59
  Brett: And then this particular piece, Tiptoe, I'm so excited to see what he says next.
• 8:03
  Brett: What do you actually play in Tiptoe?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: We've we wax it lyrical about the politics.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I played Judy, the bar manager of the Spit and Polish, which is owned by Alan Cummings character.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I am the kind of caretaker of the space.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you always get like quite familiar with like the bar manager at like your local queer bar, like always making sure that people are getting home safe, taking care of the family, checking in on people, the found family of these lovely people who have found themselves at the spit and polish.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just such a joy to be able to play like a lesbian, like dike, like a proper lesbian, you know what I mean?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like just a lesbian who loves to garden and listen to heavy metal.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, it's the first time that I was playing somebody queer in that in a very direct way.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was just really liberating to just bring that part of myself to a role.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's a lot of fun, she's a lot of laughs, and she's a lot of heart, which I think like after the conversation we've just had, we must remember that this is still Russell T.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Davis, it's still gonna be hilarious the whole way through.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's gonna be tough, but it's gonna be funny and it's gonna have bite.
• 9:13
  Brett: Yeah.
• 9:14
  Brett: Well, I can't get away from the fact that you were in Wednesday on Netflix.
• 9:19
  Brett: What was that like?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a great show.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know when you're just like working on one of those juggernauts, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just such a big, epic machine that sometimes it can be really intense, and sometimes I can be quite removed from it from periods like I'm going back to shoot next week.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just been such a joy to work with people that I've admired my whole sort of life, you know, people who inspired me to do this job.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember watching the likes of, you know, Steve Bishemi and, you know, Winona Ryder and Katherine Zedder Jones and Joanna Lumley, and the list goes on, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: These are people who who I saw on my screen when I was growing up.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just such an honor and a privilege to get to to share space with them and learn from them, really, more than anything else.
• 10:05
  Brett: I would be so nervous standing across from some of those names.
• 10:08
  Brett: I would just be like, Am I doing a scene with Patsy from Mab Found right now?
• 10:13
  Brett: You know?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I get asked that question a lot, but actually, like at the end of the day, you're so you're s you've been hired to also do a job, right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you you you did the interview, quote unquote, the audition.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're it is exciting, it is nerve-wracking, I'm not gonna lie, like I'm not uh made of stone, but at a certain point you just gotta get in and get the job done.
• 10:33
  Brett: Well, not you just did a series with Ellen Cummings, so I mean, go on Yeah.
• 10:39
  Brett: You're not gonna be starstruck that easily, but I wanted to ask you, how did you decide to identify as non-binary?
• 10:46
  Brett: How does that factor into your identity?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: My identity, I think that like for a really long time, even since like early high school, I kind of always felt that I didn't really fit the box of girl completely.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I felt like I was forcing myself into it or people were forcing my me into it.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And at that time, giving away my age, but I mean like I'm 38 now, like uh, you know, so we're talking what, like 25-ish, 26-less years ago.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't really that the language.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the the language of non-binariness.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you were either tomboy or you were you were just a masculine girl or and you know, and you couldn't colour outside of the lines and explore even what femininity means on the on the one spectrum of the binary, all the way to, you know, non-binariness all the way to masculinity, sorry.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I think as I encountered this language, I was like, oh yeah, that makes absolute sense.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I that's what I feel, that's what I'm talking about.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it took me a really long time actually to be able to feel like I could own it and feel like I could be a part of that community.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: But through some like, you know, growth and a bit of self-work, I began to to accept that and really kind of claim it.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it feels like it fits.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I also need to say that, you know, part of it is also a deeply political decision.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that as somebody who has been socialized as a black woman my entire for at least 30, I came out as non-binary when I was 33.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So socialized as a black woman for 33 years of life.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the the box of woman, as ideal woman as it is as is understood, doesn't really have a place for me as a black immigrant plus size, dark-skinned, natural-haired, black quote-unquote woman, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and in my even in my non-binary non-binariness, I exist in the tension point of not being able to negate the years of black womanhood that I identify with closely.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: My my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles, my my my friends, my sisters, my family, women across the across the globe who I connect with and relate to based on that.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yet there is still this feeling in me and this compulsion in me and this inner knowing that I exist beyond that and I want to get outside of it, both spiritually and internally, but also politically as an understanding.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think and I think it can I think non-binary can hold all of that.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it can h all of that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I relate to that's that's how I identify in this way, because I think it allows me to move in the world in a way that I can claim.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:27
  Brett: Well, how did you get into acting?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's one of those stories.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing it since I was a kid.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing it since I was a child.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And at St.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: George's Prep, I was I was did all the school musicals.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was Baloo in the jungle book and all sorts of things like that.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I and then my parents just kind of realized I was dreadful at school.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not dreadful, just like really bad at math.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't count, and I'm fine with that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: So my parents just realized that, oh, this was more than this was more than a hobby.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was like it was it was more of a calling um and something that I really enjoyed and excelled at with uh not with not without trying, but just really took to and really found joy in.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So throughout my life I went sort of back and forth between, oh, I want to be um, you know, in a more technical role, or I want to be behind the camera, or I'm even dabbled in advertising for a while when I was like, I'll never make money as an actor.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: But then I I was like, no, none of this makes me happy.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is the one thing that I enjoyed doing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I put what is the quote?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I stuck my nerve to the sticking place, I put something to the sticking place, and and just went for it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got to be a little bit Delulu to do this job.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I stay Delulu to this day.
• 14:36
  Brett: Yeah.
• 14:36
  Brett: You've obviously done big projects.
• 14:38
  Brett: I mean, you've been on a couple of Netflix productions, you've been part of the Doctor Who universe.
• 14:42
  Brett: Now you're working, you know, with Russell T.
• 14:44
  Brett: Davies, you've got obviously you're coming back for the next Wednesday season, is that right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:49
  Brett: Yeah.
• 14:49
  Brett: Yeah.
• 14:49
  Brett: So you got a lot going on.
• 14:51
  Brett: What else is in the in the hopper for you?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm writing a lot at the moment.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to finish a couple of several things.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, at the minute, I've got a play in the works and I've got a feature in the works and a couple of shorts in the works.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then we see, and then we see, I'm excited to be a part of a workshop of a queer play called Lover Mother.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Father?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Look at me being terrible at PR.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I do it all the time.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my brain is cheese at the minute.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is fully called Lover Worker Mother.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be doing that and working with some people that I've really exp respected on the queer scene, but also just as artists as well.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Mary Malone, M.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Pendergast, um, and then create an incredible creative team.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really looking forward to help nurture that story and take it further along its journey.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then we see, we we rest a bit.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, you know, I'm really excited for this to come out on the 2nd of October, and it'll be fine.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll book something.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll book the next thing.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: You see, you've got to stay Delulu.
• 15:54
  Brett: Yes, no, I Delulu is my brand.
• 15:57
  Brett: We're there.
• 15:57
  Brett: No problem.
• 15:58
  Brett: But yes, stars, October 2nd, Russell Davies, Tiptoe, uh, Alan Cummings, David Morsey, and of course, Hugh.
• 16:05
  Brett: You're in it.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we're off with like a group of like incredible, incredible actors.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: We become such far fast friends.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it was the the beauty of working with Key Street Productions in general was they were just such a class act.
• 16:20
  Brett: Well, I'm so excited for you.
• 16:21
  Brett: I can't wait to see it.
• 16:22
  Brett: I've been stalking this show since it came out.
• 16:24
  Brett: I'm like, I'm like, where is it?
• 16:26
  Brett: When is it coming to America?
• 16:27
  Brett: When are they gonna actually show it?
• 16:28
  Brett: When can I watch it?
• 16:29
  Brett: Yes, I'm excited.
• 16:30
  Brett: So thank you, Bianca Unadi Louis Niaw.
• 16:34
  Brett: I am so excited for you, and thank you for talking about all of the politics and the non-binary issues and things like that.
• 16:40
  Brett: I think it's so important.
• 16:41
  Brett: It is such a big part of our community right now.
• 16:44
  Brett: And I just wanted to give people an idea of how similar it is in the year.
• 16:48
  Brett: I feel like maybe I can run away to London and escape all of this, but no, you can't.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of peak, yeah.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: People are trying to get away, get out of here.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's scary in and of itself, but you know, we've people are fighting back.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is community, and just keep finding find your spit and polish, find your canal street, and find your found family because there's got to be joy in all of it as well.
• 17:10
  Brett: Find your Wednesday school too.
• 17:12
  Brett: So there you go.
• 17:14
  Brett: All right, thank you so much.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so, so much.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_06: All right, hello everybody.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_06: This is Matthew Williams with Queer Voices.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_06: My guest is Michael Robinson, Rice University graduate, film programmer, writer, queer cinema obsessive, because apparently being gay just wasn't enough of a commitment to the arts.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_06: He studied film and anthropology.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_06: He loves experimental films, documentaries, short films, and apparently movies that are so emotionally devastating that he had to go outside and smell things.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_06: He somehow kept missing Queer Film Festival Q-Fest, so naturally he's now running it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_06: He writes about movies for OutSmart, works in contemporary art programs, the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, and co-created the big queer picture show because Houston wasn't gay enough.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_06: Michael Robinson, welcome back to Queer Voices.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: And what an amazing introduction.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, I feel so honored.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_06: That's a good deep dive.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it takes a little bit of work.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_06: I stole it from Brett uh Goldstein from Feels to Be Buried with.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_06: So I want everybody to know that it is not something I naturally came up with.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_06: I want to talk a little bit about you, Mr.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_06: Michael, and how did you get into this career path that you're at?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: It really was all happenstantial.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I wanted to engage in chemical engineering, and there are a series of instances of interacting with people that I was like, is this gonna be my life?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: And having to have that price, that moment of like, I don't, I don't want to go down this path.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't have a job when I graduated.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, what do I do?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And my professor told me to volunteer with QFest and work with them to change my life.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: With Christian Salinas, who is just an incredible thinker, programmer person, and he just gave me so many great opportunities and made me like really think critically about films.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just like, oh no, this is exciting.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you get an audience to experience things that you just can really only experience once at a festival, and that was what set me on track to just keep programming movies queer and otherwise.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_06: And is this exactly the area you want to be in?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_06: Or did you want to go into filmmaking or just the putting it out there for everybody to see and showcasing is the one for you?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely showcasing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: I majored in film and that was more filmmaking, and it was interesting, but the overarching vision and like the storyboard is not necessarily my bag.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Understanding like there's a final product and it's connecting it to audiences and like viewing films as catalysts for conversation is so much more of what I'm interested in.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: I uh view it as like a community connections moment of like, especially in Houston, and bringing together queer histories and like resurrecting queer spaces that have been rarefied through gentrification, through how much interchanges Montres has had.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's the exciting part of being like, no, we can't actually bring people together, even if it's only for a night.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_06: How do you feel about the state of film, especially queer film?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_06: And how does that relate to the movie that you're gonna be screening coming up?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm conflicted about current queer films.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: I would always make that joke of like I would know what films people had seen based off of how old they were because everyone was searching Netflix gay to be like whatever they had licensed at the time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot more like accessibility, but I also think understanding like what a queer aesthetic is.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think so many films right now care about things that are explicitly queer but not implicitly queer.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, the beauty is in the implicitcy.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's in that texture and understanding queer eye and understanding like the makers around something, becoming obsessed with like who's a costume designer, who's the production designer.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something that I'm hoping through Letterboxd and some of these other memes, people get excited about.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of the films, though, that I'm presenting at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, that's really top of mind.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: We have Coward, which is the new film by Lucas Stant, who directed Close and Girls.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it is pretty straightforward, gay film.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: We'll kind of connect anyone who wants a more straightforward film.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: But there's also The Blood Countess, which is by Or Gottinger, who's made films since the 70s.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And she's this like zany, queer German woman who like will always make things that people might describe as esoteric.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Image forward.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's Isabella Plaire playing a lesbian vampire.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just like so out there and beautiful, and like every single image is this incredible tableau.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what excites me.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is also a great documentary called Mickey, that the whole point is questioning like, what is trans cinema?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like it equates so much of movies to like PC music of how do you understand these like modularities, how do you understand these digital textures, these fabrics, of like when a body can become an image and therefore like augmented, what therefore is a body?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: And like that's to me when cinema can like provoke these questions and can like be the starting point of conversation.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like when people can go watch a movie and then like the real magic comes from the conversation afterwards.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's like my dream as a programmer.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_06: I've recently really delved into watching the type of art house, indie, cult classic type of stuff that you know the cool kids want to watch or the people studying film or getting into.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_06: The last few years, I've had some issue with Chris Cinema overall, where it just feels a little, I don't know, not relatable.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_06: And I was just like, at least the mainstream stuff that gets talked about a lot.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, part of it was like, is there something going on with me?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of our cinema tends to have very sexy men in it doing, you know, sexual things.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_06: And it was just like, I'm not seeing, I'm not getting what everybody's getting some of these times.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_06: And then I watched my own private Idaho.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I was like, well, these are these are mostly white guys.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_06: They're very good looking people.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_06: You keep talking about Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix at the sexiest they could possibly be.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_06: And yeah, I was super into it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, here we go.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_06: I'm into this.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_06: I'm into this.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_06: So I don't, I could still haven't been able to put into words what's the difference between seeing those movies like I mean, I know I am comparing now to classics like that, but it just feels like something is not quite there right now with a lot of queer cinema that's like relatable.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_06: It seems a lot maybe a little surface level or exactly characters aren't going as deep as they get.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_06: And I feel like, as also I'm I'm black, I'm African-American, we we are it's not the best, but we're getting past having just a sassy black woman.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_06: You know, you get in the show like Insecure, where it's a quirky black girl who's a slacker and who's kind of messing up quite a bit, which we never, you know, the slacker was always a straight white guy.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_06: And that but in that character does, you know, deserves to be any kind of person because often the slacker is somebody who has some something going on and it's a deeper story than what it seems like.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_06: So why not let all every kind of person be able to play that role?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not sure if I'm getting this we're we're getting that with the queer with queer stuff, at least a lot of mainstream stuff, where it's like we're a little bit more multi-dim more multidimensional than I feel like we're getting.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_06: It still feels like some tropes, even though it's even coming from uh directors or producers that are queer.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_06: I see people get excited about things and they're like, I I don't think I can relate to this completely.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, completely.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, I see that a lot in watching, I think, films that are trying to be queer films TM.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of what I get frustrated with a lot of films that Lily wear that as the this kind of badge.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: What we lose in a lot of like representational politics is trying to like become essentialists with so much of this rather than like allowing that thorniness of queerness and that expansiveness.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the best queer films that I've seen this year is that the queer characters were tertiary characters, or you saw like queerness as like a texture of the film.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like partially it's like validating because you're watching it and like 10 minutes in, you're like, I know you, and you like see the character, and you realize like you know, straight audiences are gonna see that and you watch this character develop.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like greatness of being like you can see this movie from so many different lenses that it's not trying to position it to be like so explicit, to be here's the queer narrative to you.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think so many times that it becomes this pastiche of like what queer cinema is, where you know, like you're talking about with I've been private at Idaho with uh Gus Van San, with Greg Rocky, like I love I want your sex, just because it was like messy.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like this idea of like things being like led with ideas and with interest and with images, and then allowing yourself to explore those rather than trying to make everything tidy, like something gets lost with the translation.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like just have that excitement.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Show like what queerness can like exist with on screen and don't like define it by the parameters that it can't be.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm seeing so much, maybe it might be the algorithm, but I'm I'm getting so many ads or seeing so many things presented to me of uh queer TV shows or movies that look like they can.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_06: I haven't seen Club Kid, but I've I've heard some really nice things about it, but I'm getting a lot of that too.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_06: The like the party gays, the circuit gays, and like, alright, it's time to grow up and be an adult.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_06: And it's like, okay, that's cool.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_06: Is that you know there's more stories than that?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_06: You know, like we got we got more stories going on.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_06: And like internationally, like there's a polish show that's doing the kind of same thing.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_06: And there's like two other shows where the kid, this is one gay who loves the party and have a lot of sex, and now he needs to figure it out and grow up.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, okay, that's nice, that's nice.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_06: We got a whole bunch of other things going on.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_06: And that's a good thing.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, what I always define that is to be like, people understand the commerciality of queerness, but they see it like well, straight people have to relate to it too.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're trying to have the best of both worlds.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have to have this heteronormative aspect towards how everything is playing out.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so you just have everyone like kind of ascribing to like, no, you need to not party, you need to have a family, you need to want to get married, you want to have a kid.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just conscribe to things that, you know, for me, I have the it was the funniest that this is a terrible tangent, but it articulates this point a lot.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: For some reason, I have been watching this really terrible reality show called Summer House.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's terrible, but it is also great.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's the the straight side of Bravo from the Housewives.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And on season nine, they have this character who is a womanizer.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so every weekend he brings home another woman.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: And at some point there's a breaking point in which like the people like the housemates are like, you need to get an SCI test.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's disgusting, all of these things.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: And for anyone who's queer, like that, the straight gay man, like that one a weekend, that's you know, it's kind of dang for some people.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, like this idea of like the like that being like straight people not being able to handle that much sex or to be like demoniseual partners, is so on an opposite side of the spectrum.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And like having to understand to be like, oh, but this is only playing for straight people because that's straight sentiments.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, what exactly like how are we placing this and how are we like understanding queer interests through queer media versus like capitulating to a straight gaze, or to even understanding, like, you know, kind of what does that actually like temper things.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, to me, I always just think about like what all is available on Netflix, or like the anecdote I mentioned before, of always looking at younger generations and taking this as like this is the type of queer life that they're understanding because now it's visible, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to like seek it out in a certain way to like find mirrors of yourself and golden girls and other like aspects.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: You're able to like go on Netflix and see a queer lead already in a show that like is highly advertised that their parents might watch, but then it's like so neutered.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, what what is the queer media that we're producing actually going to impact on younger generations?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and you know, it's funny you bring up golden girls.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_06: I grew up watching reruns religiously of The Golden Girls and In Living Color.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_06: And I was like, this I'm such a gay black millennial.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_06: Gay black millennial to watch those because FX and Lifetime were right next to each other on the way the cable setup was, so I just had to flip.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_06: They would come two episodes of The Living Color and then right, or vice versa, two episodes of Golden Girls, and then go right into two episodes in Living Color.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_06: And I didn't recognize my sexuality until I was like I graduated high school or early college, and never knew it was a gay thing.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_06: I was I was just watching the girls.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_06: I was just like, but this is just funny.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_06: This is just this is just a funny show.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't know until I met some stray guys, some stray friends, like, yeah, I don't know if I want to watch that show.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_06: I'm like, okay, well, something wrong with you then.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_06: It's just a funny show.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_06: And then I heard a joke one time, like, say what now?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_06: It's a what?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_06: What are we talking about?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't know it was a gay thing.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_06: I just thought it was a funny show.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_06: It made me even prouder to be into it because I was like, the girls knew, I I got into it before I knew.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_06: It was nice to have shows like that that can, even if it's not explicitly being, you know, gay like that, it was it provided that kind of context to catch for somebody like me to catch it before I even recognize it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_06: And I wonder if the kids today are having that even because then now they're just getting the shows that are that, but then those shows will perform in a way that we're talking about.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, I want to talk more about the uh the film festival and the movies that you're doing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_06: Any more information you want to give about it or when they're gonna uh when you're gonna show them or how they find out about it, the listeners.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so this is for the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which is taking place October 1st through the 11th at venues all across Houston, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Rice Cinema, Brazil, the Deluxe Theater, River Oaks Theater, Asia Society, and more.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone wants to find out more information, they can visit cinemahdx.org or go to hcaf2026.eventiv.org for tickets.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: There are passes available to attend the whole festival, or you can buy individual tickets.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: But it really is a great, wide-ranging festival that, you know, features uh films from Houston, from the state, and from really the entire globe.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: We're opening with Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, which is Bassam Tariq's film that just uh debuted at Toronto to great reviews.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is set in Houston.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's a Houston-based director, so we're very excited, starring Marshal Ali.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We also have, you know, such a great variety of international films.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned The Blood Countess.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're actually flying Bridget Minischmeier down for that film.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: We have a great restoration of a film from India called Report to Mother.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's Look Back, which, you know, kind of like we're talking about, has a lot of queer texture to it about two young girls who both love drawing manga and bond over their shared love.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of sapphic energy happening between them that's really sweet to witness.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Nina Rosa, which is Canada's submission for the Oscars, The Debut, starting Julianne Moore, a diva, really the diva of all divas, and so many more.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really a good, uh wide array of different films that are offered, but also just like a great time with, you know, local filmmakers, a good way to kind of meet other film goers, and just a general sense of excitement.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, fall film festivals, if you know you're not familiar, are really that like kind of award season campaign.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's all of these movies traveling all across the the nation as they, you know, debut at Toronto and then they go to a New York film festival and they've maybe been to Telaride, and there's just this general kind of like buzz around them of you know, people talking about these movies, and this is a lot of times the first time you can like see them for yourself before you know they're an Oscar race and there's all of these narratives around them, and you kind of get to make your own, you know, opinions on them or be part of that excitement.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of these you can see any you know Auster pundits writing about them, but it's just fun to kind of be a part of that sense of excitement.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and especially a lot of these are Texas premiers.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: So before anyone in Austin, before anyone in Dallas um gets to watch them, they're playing here first.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_06: That's good to hear, because that should happen more often.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_06: With I agree.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, we're the fourth biggest city in the nation.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_06: Some of these other cities getting things before us I don't like.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_06: With the last few minutes that we have, uh there are two things that I wanted to bring up.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_06: One, this is just uh like looking into a little bit of your history.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_06: I saw that you also studied anthropology.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_06: And one it made me want to ask this question, and then of course, what you're what you're doing with film is or do you view documentary makers as anthropologists, or at least can be.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_06: And yeah, and if that situation, in that case, is Paris' Burning maybe the greatest like anthropology thing put on film?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_06: Because I just like when that when I first seen that, I was like, okay, it blew my mind.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_06: And then the Criterion Collection, but then to realize like somebody discovered a world in its prime and put it on camera and filmed it and got the whole as much of a story, the good and the bad and the ugly, all on film and and saved it in this capsule.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_06: I can't think of too much modern stuff that's been caught into in real time like that.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I just am I am I saying this correctly?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: I guess is my I I am partial because there's a group called the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: And they are like the premier visual anthropologists.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, have films like uh Menacamana, there's Dry Ground Burning, Rock Bottom Riser, all of these really great documentary films that are really looking at the lens in different ways.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think Leviathan might be the most notable because they put a camera on the side of a boat, of a fishing boat.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're it's just always about looking at things differently, which I think is great.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: But for what you're talking about with Perses Burning, I do think it is totally up there, if not the top, just because like that is the way that people understand lexicon from that film.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it solidifies definitions where so many of these words themselves get mutated and are so malleable outside that like kind of accidentally becomes the Bible and a Bible for everyone, a Bible for like straight people, for queer people, and for actually like honoring so many of the people in the ballroom at that time, of just like having this like instance where so many people's legacy really was solidified in a way that I think without like kind of the smaller independent film would not have happened.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: And like you're saying, that whole like discoverability aspect of it.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: Jenny Livinson approached it with such great curiosity and never with like a sense of ownership of how to how to talk about it, which is like you know, just like the anthropology ethics of it all.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_06: As a queer, and that was I'm pretty sure I seen it when I first came out.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_06: So it was already like like now I'm catching my people.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_06: Now I'm understanding it.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_06: That was the big thing for me.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_06: Like, okay, I need to, I've accepted this.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_06: I was just like, oh, now I need, I want to see my people in all its shades.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_06: And so when I came across that, I was like, whoa, what is this?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_06: What am I?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_06: I've heard about it, but oh, this is yeah, this is crazy.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: So, yes, last thing I want to ask real quick, what gives you hope today?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: Something that I've been thinking about a lot.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: And this is like such a very basic kind of concept.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was writing my introduction for the festival yesterday, and so much of what I was kind of ideating on is just, you know, the theme for the festival this year is my eyes are playing tricks on me.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just like contending with the rise of AI and like how do we trust images and like looking at that sense of like relationality between like audiences and like what we're consuming, and also just kind of meditating on like there's been a lot of disruptions to images, right?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: How do people like find truth and persist in that and like how to in ways to articulate that to audiences has always been kind of this existential question.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think so many ways that like the doomsday mentality of like, oh my god, this has happened, this has happened, is like there are always cycles.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we just always think of things in like such short terms.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: There's like, I point to this film like Report to Mother that's amazing because it's a collective that raised money to like film their own movie by going like village to village and collecting rupees, and then they were like able to like write it all themselves with like non-actors and film off non-actors, and that's also how they screened it too.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, yes, you might not be able to make the thing that's like way up here, but like crowdsourcing for a film was not like a thing then.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: But like no one is citing this as like the first crowdsourced film, right?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: But like everyone always finds their means.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um we have so much exposure to how everything else is and how the worst of the world is that everyone wants to describe first rather than just kind of being like our ingenuity will always save us.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so my hope is just like that, like there will always be solutions, that it's not like we don't always have to invent the future because the past has already invented the future and we just always have to listen to that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_06: I asked a question every interview I've done since I've started coming back.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_06: And my answer, my minor was in African American studies, and I just and my degree is in music.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_06: And so I just it knowing just the history of black people, just the just the I got from the being having the minor, it's like, well, I don't like if I'm in giving up for a phase knowing what people before my people before me survived, I it feels weird.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_06: It feels it feels weird to and then you throw in knowing queer history and knowing just what humans have survived in the past that you survive and have fun while you're doing it.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_06: And it just feels better, that feels better than you know, doom scrolling and giving up.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_06: And I get that is easy, but it just doesn't feel good, and I want I don't want to do something that doesn't feel good.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_06: So that and that's why I want to make it a part of my thing with the wide array of guests that I talk to.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_06: What is it that's giving you hope today?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_06: Because it, you know, there's there's a lot of reasons, many, many, many, many reasons, and more reasons give uh to have hope than not have hope, in my opinion.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: So, Mr.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: Robson, thank you very much for coming to speak with me.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, my name is Matthew Williams, and this is Queer Voices.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
• 37:26
  Brett: Hi there, this is Brett Cullum, and Cypress Stage is launching its inaugural season with Emily Mann's play, Gloria, A Life.
• 37:34
  Brett: And it is running from October 2nd through the 18th.
• 37:38
  Brett: And we get Deborah Hope not starring in the show, but directing it, which is such a switch.
• 37:45
  Brett: It's just so awesome because Deborah really is one of Houston's most notable leading ladies.
• 37:49
  Brett: I mean, she has been seen in almost every venue you can think of here, and probably a few that you probably wouldn't have thought of.
• 37:56
  Brett: But she's also done work in New York, she's done television, she's done film, she's a YouTube viral sensation with her bestie Joel Sandell doing car takes.
• 38:05
  Brett: So welcome, Deborah.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to be here.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
• 38:08
  Brett: I am so excited to see you.
• 38:10
  Brett: And of course, this show uh launches this entire company.
• 38:14
  Brett: I mean, this is this their inaugural thing.
• 38:16
  Brett: So you're right at the front end of this, and it's October 2nd.
• 38:19
  Brett: I noticed there's a special Gala type occasion.
• 38:23
  Brett: So tell me a little bit about this new company and where they're where they are.
• 38:27
  Brett: They're up in Cyprus.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're in Cyprus, which sounds so far.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I remember when they first came to me and I and I and Ron had asked me, uh, would you direct this?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a woman really needs to direct it, and you would be great.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'd only directed a couple things in the past, but you know, actors, I want to act, but I also want to direct.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's always kind of in your head.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when he said I didn't say yes at first, and then he said it would be in Cyprus.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And right away I went, Cyprus?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking that's what how far is Cyprus?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need a passport?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's 20 minutes, it's closer than Brenham, and I go up to Unity Theater all the time.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's 20 minutes from where I live, which is in the heights, uh door to door.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just straight up 290, and there it is.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, it seems like it's far away because the people who come from Cyprus see Houston to see shows, but now we're asking people to go from Houston to Cyprus to see shows.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then the people who live in Cyprus trying to get a theater.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're renting the space at the uh Cyprus Woods High School.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're a black box, but that's not the permanent space, that's just the first place that they got to to do it in, uh, which will be great.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's don't be scared at Cyprus.
• 39:44
  Brett: I'm not scared of it because I definitely grew up in that area, so I'm I'm kind of familiar.
• 39:48
  Brett: And high school black boxes, I mean, they are tricked out these days.
• 39:51
  Brett: I mean, come on, it's better than some of the spaces you're gonna get.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful space and it's it's kind of new.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: There there's some things that they because it's new, uh, we have uh John Peoples is doing the sound and he had gone in to look at it and he's gonna help them tweak it to make their system better.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it it's every if everything feels inaugural with this.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And even with the passing of that Gloria, it just feels like we have the right time to do it, and and this is important and we want to get it right and honor her and her legacy and and the ongoing uh struggle.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 40:27
  Brett: Well, it was a wild timing, and who could have known when you when you started this?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: They got the rights to it four months before this.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there it was just like we love her and and this is important and she's still out there fighting the fight, and I'm sorry to say.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so it was just the timing was crazy.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: We had gone into rehearsal actually, and the day after she had passed, and it was a little solemn when we walked in and we didn't know how to react.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is it is it okay that we're gonna say this is the right time to do it or this is a good timing, which sounds disrespectful.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: But we honor her every single night uh when we go into that theater.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: So she she's with us every step of the way.
• 41:12
  Brett: Oh, I'm sure.
• 41:13
  Brett: But tell me about this play, Gloria Alife, Emily Mann.
• 41:17
  Brett: I I've heard some interesting things about it.
• 41:19
  Brett: So tell me what it's like, what it's uh what it's kind of doing.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing like I've uh ever been in or certainly directed.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's six women who play the the ensemble, and each of those women play probably 15 different characters, so they switch, and Gloria is talking to the audience, and it's set up like a talking circle.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be uh it's like how she started out in her living room or in a basement.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wilma Mankiller, who was the first Cherokee chief back in the 70s, she was the one who talked about the talking circle and how much you get done when there's not a a leader, sort of like the round table.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you have one person who stands up and then somebody else, nobody's intimidated by the the structure of it.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just very warm and welcoming and and you feel safe to to tell your story.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we at the end, the last 20 minutes, we turn the whole theater into a talking circle and invite the audience to what was your experience or how can you relate to something that had happened.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because we go through her life from when she started in the 70s and then cut to I think the last uh protest we see on screen is gonna be the uh No Kings protest, I think, uh uh 2017.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: It accumulates, but it it's fast paced, and we go from and there the ensemble is running uh to I'm doing this scene.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're at the Oak Room in New York and we're protesting, and now we're at the women's convention.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just it's this big circle and then circles within circles, and to to get people to to understand and feel motivated and inspired.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's an event.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's I I think it's gonna be really cool the way it's shaping up right now.
• 43:09
  Brett: It sounds like such a neat way to honor her.
• 43:12
  Brett: I know.
• 43:12
  Brett: And sounds like it's so much like her with the frenetic energy of you know, all these things happening that we're because that was her life.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Melissa Merrick is playing Gloria, and at the end she has this, and I always tear up.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to tear up now.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: When one of the things she says, Well, I hope I live till a hundred because I've so to do.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she has to say that.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Melissa, you're not you're not dead.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't let the tears come, you know, you're still she calls herself a hopaholic.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still that you can't dive into that emotion, but it it makes the emotion in me come out when you just hear her say, Oh, I just I wish I had 20 more years.
• 43:52
  Brett: Yeah.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we wouldn't do.
• 43:54
  Brett: Well, do you have when you look back at Gloria, do you remember, is there anything that stands out to you just in your own personal?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, I you know, I I always try to hide what my age is, but I can't if I'm if I'm gonna honor Gloria because you have to own who you are.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I was 17 when all of this happened, when uh the National Organization for Women uh first came into being.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was 17 just as Planned Parenthood was into being.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So everything, everything that I had known growing up, and I had a tyrant of a father, and he had five daughters.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very, this is how you're supposed to do, act, look.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw and heard Gloria, it was such a a light bulb moment.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely brett changed the trajectory of my life.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I had been taught was from my father's point of view.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Gloria's the one who opened everything up and the injustice of this and and and the simple question what is so what is so controversial about saying that I want the same rights that you have as a man?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that controversial?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of started my my worldview.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she was the one.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: I went to uh Washington.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in Philly at the time.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone to Washington and I was trying to remember, because I remember marching, but I think I took the train to Washington.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I always say I went from Philly to Washington, but I don't think we marched from Philly to Washington.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think, but I don't remember that far.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we took a train to Washington uh and we marched there.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I was with that crowd uh in that first protest.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't see her.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was in, it was insane, but I could hear her and being around uh like-minded men and women who had that, yeah, this is unfair and we have to change it.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Another like my mind just kept exploding and expanding and and I was waking up and uh and and seeing it, and I I became one of the first hard-carrying members of now.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was the uh first time Ms.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Magazine came out, I subscribed to Ms.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was very hopeful she they were afraid they wouldn't get past the first issue, but I had a subscription and it came every month.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I just felt like this is I'm talking about me and and my life and my friends and so who I chose to be with at that point, what I chose to do with my body at that point, what everything was a completely different ball game.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because of not just Gloria, but her and all the women who stood with her and helped her and lifted her up because you don't do it alone.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the at a 17-year-old, yeah, that it was a big, big deal.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna have to agree with Ron.
• 46:41
  Brett: You're the right person to direct this.
• 46:46
  Brett: Oh my gosh.
• 46:47
  Brett: Yeah.
• 46:48
  Brett: No, just that connection that that's pretty powerful.
• 46:51
  Brett: Yeah.
• 46:52
  Brett: So well, I would like to find out a little bit about you too, though.
• 46:55
  Brett: How did you get into acting?
• 46:56
  Brett: I was always curious about like the young Deborah starting off, speaking of you at 17.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a circuitous trip.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the first thing I I well, no, I was the even from being a little girl, we lived in these row houses and and uh in the back alleys, that's where the garages were.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was probably seven, I probably first grade.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would put on shows that my parents had no idea about.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would put on shows, I would open up the garage in the back, I'd put some chairs, not in the garage because the garage was the theater, and I would go around and knock on doors of our neighbors and say, Oh, I'm gonna put on a show.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all like this improv.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would just because, you know, now they're there, I should I should probably do a song.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now I should probably do something else.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was always wanted to entertain.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: My father, the tyrant, was also very funny.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was a funny, funny man.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to be that funny.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to, because he could command a room with his stories and, you know, the Irish stories that kind of go on, but they're funny as hell.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be that.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: So uh me trying to emulate my dad is is such a weird thing now because he was the reason that I I became a feminist, but he's also the reason that I was as funny as I was, as oh yeah, I can do this, I can entertain a crowd.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: So even then, so in in uh high school, I was in the thespian society in high school.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: I did that's all I ever wanted to do, but my life took a you know little bit of a turn.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when I came back to it, I came back to stand-up comedy.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, oh, I'll I'll do that.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I I thought it's crazy.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that for a year.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: I toured for a year doing stand-up, which was such a good proving ground for an actor, but so hard because when they don't like you, it's not they don't like you.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like, oh, I didn't like the play, I didn't like the direction, I didn't like this.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, they hate you.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that was, but it gives you that that tough skin, uh, where you can if I survive that, I can survive anything.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went into improv.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I did all the hard stuff first, and but I was already I had already gone to New York.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was in New York when I was 19, I think.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I had taken classes with Uda Hagen.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean it it's like that's the where I wanted to go.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I was trained to do.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, but it it just again, it took this other turn.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got professional, it was the comedy was first, the the uh improv was first, and then the acting was first.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a little bit, nothing notable in uh Philly or New York, and then didn't do anything for a while.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I came to Houston, I got my first show in Houston, and it just it was like this is where you need to be.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I just kept getting uh better opportunities, working with better people all the time.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Learn I never I still take classes.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not only do I teach, but I still take classes.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: I still go to people to coach me on things.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you never really stop learning how to do it.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: But somebody had asked me a few years ago, well, if you couldn't be an actor, what would you want to be?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't, I mean, I've done other things.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I was in business and did all that.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't give you a I this is it.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is all I wanted ever to do.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I study it like like like a scholar, although I'm not a scholar.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I keep wanting, that's my goal.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep getting better, just work with people who are gonna challenge you and and you're gonna make each other better.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ensemble work is my favorite because you know, everybody's there and you're you're again lifting each other up to make you know the the uh the the whole better.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I that's all I that's my I I'm I'm jumping, but yeah, that's kind of Oh, it's great.
• 51:00
  Brett: No, absolutely.
• 51:00
  Brett: You know, Houston and in Houston theater particularly, what is it about this area that you find so vibrant?
• 51:06
  Brett: Because when I look at your your credit sheet, which goes all the way from Actors Theater of Houston and inspecting Carol all the way up to like airline highway with dirt dogs.
• 51:15
  Brett: Yeah, a lot of it's Houston.
• 51:17
  Brett: I see a lot of Houston in here.
• 51:19
  Brett: Yeah.
• 51:19
  Brett: Um, so what do you think about Houston that makes it so vibrant as a theater city?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone here, it's not like I did shows in New York and I auditioned in New York.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was and it's great.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying anything was bad, and who I work with was wonderful.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great experience, but you are really competing and nobody really cares, like nobody is like, break a leg.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I wish you luck.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or no, it's like, I hope you die.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope your leg breaks.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's like like nobody cares about you because it's because there's so many people vying for roles there.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I came here, it was maybe not in well, no, no, no.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in the beginning, because I I think with uh Jerry Labida's theater, theater lab, that was the first place where I felt like, and I didn't do that many shows there, but I felt like it was a home.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was, we were all like-minded.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we weren't all the same age group, it just felt like we were a unit.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was from that point, and that was in the, I guess, the late 80s, early 90s, it became we just started making it more familial.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: We say that we have this bubble around us and we have this circle.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: But somebody goes, Well, how do I get into the circle?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the circle expands.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: You just, you know, you want to get into the circle, we make room, and then the circle is bigger.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we encourage each other.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've have not seen that any place else.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're such a tight knit.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: We want every theater to succeed.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, if I won the lottery and this is in my my uh, you know, vision board, every theater in Houston would be funded.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's so important.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody in this community, in the this theater community understands that.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: And even the the critics, even the you know, the people in who are in the, you know, tangentially, is that the right word?
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: Connected to it, they're they're still supportive.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's still, which is why Joel and I did the the car takes.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just keep lifting, get more people into theater because theater is what's gonna uh get right to your heart.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: It can change minds, it can not just entertain, but it can there's so much it can do, especially for young people.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm very hope.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like Gloria, I'm a hope a holic.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very hopeful about the uh the life of Houston theater because I think it is nothing like I've ever seen any place else.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you realize you just mentioned the circle.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:49
  Brett: So there you are, going right back.
• 53:51
  Brett: Going right back.
• 53:52
  Brett: Yeah.
• 53:52
  Brett: So okay, you do this thing with Joel.
• 53:54
  Brett: Sandra uh car takes.
• 53:56
  Brett: How did you meet Joel?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: My God, I've known Joel from when I first moved to Houston.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember what year it was.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it was probably late 80s, and I got into theater pretty quickly here.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm and he knows the first time he met me because he told me the story and I forget it again.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll have to interview him and ask him.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think we did a show together or or we knew each other from the community.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we've been friends for, I mean, it now tell my age again, it's like 13 years we've been friends.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long time and we've done shows together.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just that we have the same brain.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we we also have the same uh we go to parties together, but one of the reasons that we go together is because we both, believe it or not, don't like to be around crowds.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if it gets too, you know, too much, when he's ready to go, I'm ready to go.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or when I'm ready to go, he's ready to go.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're the same temperament as far as that goes.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just a a perfect fit for us.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:54
  Brett: Well, you two are magic together.
• 54:56
  Brett: I really love car takes and I really love seeing you on stage together.
• 54:59
  Brett: And I am campaigning for like a show where you actually go off of each other a little bit more.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are.
• 55:05
  Brett: We are yeah, yeah, that's 27.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, that's coming up.
• 55:11
  unknown: Yeah.
• 55:11
  Brett: What in 2027?
• 55:14
  Brett: Okay.
• 55:14
  Brett: All right.
• 55:14
  Brett: Cause I remember I I went to that Main Street theater production that you were both in, but he was the lead.
• 55:20
  Brett: Yeah.
• 55:21
  Brett: And there was an ex-the.
• 55:23
  Brett: Yeah.
• 55:24
  Brett: Yes, but the yeah, I was like, why is Deborah not the ex-wife?
• 55:27
  Brett: This would be so much funnier.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you'll you'll like this one coming up.
• 55:31
  Brett: Okay, good.
• 55:32
  Brett: Well, of course, we are talking about Cypress Stage launching their inaugural season.
• 55:37
  Brett: Emily Mann's play, Gloria Alife.
• 55:40
  Brett: We're looking at October 2nd through the 18th.
• 55:42
  Brett: And of course, Deborah is directing, which is kind of interesting.
• 55:45
  Brett: And you said you've only directed a couple of shows before, right?
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, I didn't even put it on my resume.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was a couple years ago, I believe I did it for Mildred's umbrella.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a one act, I think it was part of a festival.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was a dating game.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or yeah, I think it was dating game, which is all, you know, how do you don't you can't not direct that.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know how what the dating game looks like.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was not difficult.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then a couple years ago, not this past season, but the one before at the high school for the performing and visual arts, uh, they brought me in to direct, uh, and this was like, you want me to direct this?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: The uh servant of two masters, they were doing it there.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it that is, and I'm sure you've seen it, that's a three hour, three hour, 15 minute play.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it had to be done in an hour because it's a high school production.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I had three scripts, so I had to kind of cobble together a script.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: So they never actually got a whole script because it was just pages, you know, very Shakespearean.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your page, here's your page.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there were 20 something people in that in that show.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think I could do that, but you don't know until you start doing it.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: And other people around me, yes, you can.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Rosie Curtis, who's the uh department head at GVA, she's the one who said, You can this is comedy, you can absolutely do this.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I don't have a lot under my belt, but I feel very confident.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: And especially because this, it's not your standard, you know, here's this scene, here's that.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's a little different.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's fun.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: If if you're if it's gonna be new, get somebody new to have put new eyes on it.
• 57:26
  Brett: So yeah, absolutely.
• 57:27
  Brett: Well, there's anybody that can make me drive to Cyprus, it would be Gloria Steinem and Deborah Hope.
• 57:33
  Brett: So there you are.
• 57:34
  Brett: Thank you so much.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna be an event.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think people should, yeah.
• 57:38
  Brett: No, absolutely.
• 57:39
  Brett: And we'll have to come back later and talk about another project, but we will we'll tease that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_08: This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston, and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_08: Check our webpage queervoices.org for more information.
• 58:05
  Ghost of Glenn: Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime.
• 58:09
  Ghost of Glenn: This program does not endorse any political views or animal species.
• 58:11
  Ghost of Glenn: Views, opinions, and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent.
• 58:15
  Ghost of Glenn: In case of death, please discontinue using the discovery remaining products.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_08: For Queer Voices, I'm Glenn Hall.