A rediscovered Tennessee Williams play

The Dec. 24-31 issue of Metro Weekly reports that Spooky Action Theater is streaming its production of a virtually unknown early play by Tennessee Williams, "The Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers," now through Jan. 14.

The play premiered at last year's Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Natsu Onoda Power, a multimedia stage artist and professor at Georgetown University who adapted and directed the work for the festival, has redesigned it for a virtual presentation by the local Spooky Action Theater. Dylan Arredondo, Melissa Carter and Jared H. Graham star in the work, presented by special arrangement with the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. 

An access link costs $10. Call (202) 248-0301 or visit www.spookyaction.org. 

The Origins of Gay Power

Next week, we begin an anthology that I am really looking forward to: The Violet Quill Reader: The Emergence of Gay Writing, edited by David Bergman. In conjunction with the first selection, a July 1969 letter in which Edmund White describes his participation in the Stonewall Riots, Patrick Flynn kindly shared the following photo he took at the Newseum's final exhibition on gay liberation:

Remembering Deb Price

Way back in November 2003, we discussed Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court by Deb Price and Joyce Murdoch. Today's Washington Post has an obituary for Ms. Price, who passed away last month at the age of 62. It notes that in addition to publishing several books, she was the first nationally syndicated columnist on gay life. Her column originated in the Detroit News (here is their tribute to Ms. Price, as well as the New York Times obituary), but was quickly picked up by hundreds of newspapers across the country and ran from 1992 to 2010. She is survived by Ms. Murdoch, her wife.

"Drag Queens and Beauty Queens"

Several members of BookMen DC have written or edited books over the years, but as far as I know, this is the first time one of us has garnered a photo credit. Congratulations, Robert! 

He explains: "I've always wanted to be mentioned in a book. However, I'm not so sure I had this title in mind! A professor from Stockton University wrote a book about the gay scene in Atlantic City in the '80s, '90s, etc. Someone showed her this picture of when I was visiting some friends there in 1981 and asked me if she could use it."

The author's name is Laurie Greene and the book is Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Contesting Femininity in the World's Playground, published last year. I've just ordered it, and may nominate it for our next reading list.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Apologies for posting this after World AIDS Day, but if you haven't viewed the AIDS Memorial Quilt in a while (or ever), it is available online. As Washington City Paper notes, the quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987 with 1,920 panels commemorating the dead; when it was last stretched in its entirety across the Mall in 1996, it has more than 39,000. COVID-19 made it impossible to exhibit portions of the quilt in locations across America, this year, but you can view all its blocks, categorized by state and curated by display hosts, online. Washington, D.C.'s representatives include the Library of Congress and the Whitman-Walker Clinic.