Queer Voices
Queer Voices
September 24 2025 Queer Voices The Amazing Atlantis Narcisse, Montrose Center Out for Good honoree, Upstairs fire tragedy and DaVinci Code at Alley Theater
This week, we have two interviews with Atlantis Narcisse, a trailblazing force in Houston's LGBTQ+ community whose journey spans decades of service, advocacy, and community building. From organizing HIV testing sessions in her living room during the 1990s epidemic to founding multiple organizations supporting transgender individuals of color, Atlantis embodies the spirit of compassionate leadership and resilient advocacy. We are running two recent interviews with her, because she is being honored at the OUT FOR GOOD benefit on October 4th. You can get tickets through the Montrose Center Website.
As founder and CEO of Save Our Sisters United, Atlantis created a lifeline for transgender women seeking safe healthcare alternatives to dangerous "street hormones." Her home, lovingly called the House of Capri, became a sanctuary where LGBTQ+ individuals rejected by their birth families could find genuine acceptance. "To be that house mother was to help take care of your real life," Atlantis explains, "not your club life, not anything else but your real life, and to see you as a person and empower you."
More information on OUT FOR GOOD can be found at:
https://montrosecenter.org/event/out-for-good-2025/
The segment following our spotlight on Atlantis is about the Upstairs Lounge arson attack that happened in 1973. 32 people died, and it remained the largest and deadliest attack on a queer space until Pulse in Orlando. Brett Cullum and Lee Ingalls discuss that history.
Finally, we talk with Michael Locher, who is over technical design at the ALLEY THEATRE. He takes us behind the scenes at THE DA VINCI CODE, which is running at the ALLEY THEATRE into October. Tickets for that performance can be found at the Alley's website, and if you want to attend the LGBTQ+ night, it is called OUT AT THE ALLEY. Here is a link.
https://www.alleytheatre.org/shows-and-events/actout/
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
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Speaker 2:This is Deborah Moncrief-Bell and I'm speaking with Atlantis Narcisse, who's the founder and CEO of Save Our Sisters United, director of programs for the Transgender Education Network of Texas and deputy director with Les Rock. She's worked for the Montrose Center, the legacy community health in the city of Houston, bridging the gap between community and needed services since the early 1990s, during the years of the HIV epidemic. Atlantis was known for organizing accessible and stigma-free HIV STD testing, whether it was from her living room to partnering with local clinics. You began your journey decades ago as a house mother who held space for people who needed a comfortable, judgment-free environment for medical aid. This house, the Atlantis Birth, was created to close the familial gap that many members of the LGBTQ plus community experience with respect to their birth or legal families, and is lovingly called the house of Capri.
Speaker 3:A house mother. For me, a house mother is to be there to fill in gaps, as you mentioned, but also to add this layer of support, of nourishing, empowering and uplifting people. Like a lot of times, people don't realize that when we enter into this community, sometimes our birth families are left behind and you're looking for a place to belong that collective. So for me, to be that house mother was to help take care of your real life, not your club life, not anything else but your real life and to see you as a person and empower you. So that's my definition for a house mother.
Speaker 2:For me, Explain what Save Our Sisters United is.
Speaker 3:Save Our Sisters United is actually a brainchild, a birth from my heart. What people don't realize was that I was really part of a support system that helped navigate trans women to getting healthy HRTs to remove them from using street moans, to getting them in doctor's care. So what I started seeing was that a lot of people kept reaching out to me after I would leave the club and I was like, what happens if I'm not here? So the SOS was supposed to be like this call to action see our strengths, shed our shame and all these types of things. So SOSU started with the trans women of color and then we eventually started SOSU, which is the umbrella which SOS lives up under, as well as SOSB, which is for trans men, transcending Gaming, which is a social event for the community to come in and socialize and build community.
Speaker 2:What does being nominated for Grand Marshal mean to you?
Speaker 3:Thanks for seeing me. A lot of times we are doing the work and people don't see us and they only see our body of work and not the body that does the work. So for me to be seen in Houston, texas, as a Black trans woman over 50 plus, it is phenomenal, it is heartwarming. It also makes me realize that I'm not forgotten, if that makes sense, that I still have some type of presence within our community.
Speaker 2:What is your past experience with pride? And you are a native Houstonian and you got your degree in sociology at TSU. You are representing in so many levels. Do you think that pride is relevant?
Speaker 3:Oh God, yes, definitely, I definitely feel like pride is relevant. I think anything that shows the diverse and our expressions of our queerness is relevant. Hearing pride and knowing its existence has made me feel like I am relevant, that we are seeing, that the city of Houston sees us, that the nation sees us, because there are prides all across the nation.
Speaker 2:The theme is you won't break our pride. What does that mean for you?
Speaker 3:Especially after the year we have had as trans people. You won't break us. I think that means that no matter what you say, what you do, we are resilient. We are not going anywhere. Though you may take these superficial attacks at us, we are stronger and we are even stronger together. Not breaking us, meaning that we are our own joy. You don't get to govern that. Not bending us and tearing us down, because we uplift and empower each other.
Speaker 2:This is Deborah Moncriek-Bell, and I'm talking with Atlantis. Narcisse, what would you say?
Speaker 3:your number one achievement in the community is I have really believed that my number one contributor is uplifting the narratives of Black trans women here in Houston. As many people may know, it was three Black trans women that really started the narrative of Black trans women here in Houston Myself, deedee and Monica and I'm the only one left in Houston right now. So I am glad that Black voices, especially those of Black trans bodies, are being heard, those narratives are being seen, and the importance of why narratives need to be expressed and heard and taken care of. So, yes, I feel like me just being present, creating it, doing the work that I have done is the most valuable thing I could have ever done, because we started the conversation.
Speaker 2:Tell me who Dee Dee is and who about Monica.
Speaker 3:Monica Roberts. I have been having so many conversations about Monica. Monica was really the push behind getting narratives out there about trans murders as well as anything that was anti-trans. She was a beast when it came to the political arena, which I am not, so thank you, monica, for holding that down. Indeed, he was definitely another beast for on-ground advocacy for trans people, as well as going into places like healthcare city of Houston healthcare departments to battle for us to be able to use the bathroom.
Speaker 2:Yes, unfortunately we lost Monica several years ago, monica Roberts, who was indeed a force of nature. We do miss those that aren't with us, but they also gave us inspiration to carry on. Is there anything that I coming toward? Queerness is not a me agenda.
Speaker 3:It's a we agenda, and that we are stronger together, as we have always shown in history and we will continue to show that, and that we are all powerful in our own spaces and we're all each grand marshals in somebody's eyes.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being with us on Queer Voices.
Speaker 4:Thank you for listening to Queer Voices on KPFT or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Davis Mendoza-Druzman here today with an exciting interview with community leaders Atlantis Narcissus, founder of Save Our Sisters United Inc, a Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering, connecting and mobilizing trans people of color, and founder and co-chair of Queens of Houston. That's Queer Unified Emergency and Empowerment Network of Houston, a brand new community-based coalition with local LGBTQ plus orgs like the Montrose Center, montrose Grace Place, hpd's LGBTQ plus community liaison and, of course, save Our Sisters United Inc and more. Hey Alanis.
Speaker 3:Hey Davis, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4:We're also joined by our third fellow Queens of Houston co-chair, austin Davis Ruiz, who is also president of the Houston LGBTQ Plus Political Caucus, the oldest LGBTQIA plus civil rights organization in the South. Welcome back to Queer Voices.
Speaker 5:Austin. Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity, davis, good to be back.
Speaker 4:So glad to have y'all on Now this isn't either of y'all's first time on Queer Voices Atlantis through your Houston Pride 365 Pride Grand Marshal nomination, and Austin through your work with Houston LGBTQ Plus Political Caucus, but this is y'all's first time here talking about Queens of Houston. So Atlantis I mentioned earlier that Queens of Houston stands for Queer Unified Emergency and Empowerment Network of Houston. But could you tell me a little bit about the history, how it came about, why y'all believe that this is necessary and what the work looks like?
Speaker 3:Sure, Thanks, davis. Queens of Houston came out of the evolution of Rain in Paradise. So, as you know, texas has lived sometimes with trans murders and sadly here in Houston we have seen two this year. And with those we started noticing that the way that we were responding was so siloed. We weren't responding as a community, it was only Black trans people responding. When trans people were being killed, when it was a Latinx trans person, it was only the Latin community and it just did not spell community to me.
Speaker 3:I started seeing that there were some spots where we could be a little bit more cohesive and stand as a community and that sometimes the separation was out of respect in a sense. So it was a double-edged sword. I wanted to be able to remove that double-edged sword and bring more community into this fight. For us, this is not a me fight, this is a we fight and, as we know, many trans people have stood up in front lines for everybody's rights. So why can we not do that together as a community?
Speaker 3:As far as how we navigate in the work that goes through that, we act like a supplement support for families when their loved member has been taken away violently. We help navigate them through our community to get the information that they need. We help battle misinformation, as we know, a lot of times on the social media. It could be a good thing, but it also could be a bad thing. So battling and misinformation and having one voice, one message, shows the cohesiveness of the community as well, and it's not just about, like, violent crimes, it's also natural disasters, any need that the LGBT community needs. We are there as Queens of Houston to be there, to respond and to help navigate the situation. So many times we have liaisons coming from community orgs, from our allies. Why do we not have liaisons and space for us to stand up for our community?
Speaker 4:Thank you, Atlantis, Austin. Atlantis touched on community cohesiveness and bringing community together, and you are very prevalent in the community, both with the Houston LGBTQ plus political caucus but also the Harris County Commissioner's Court. You work with Precinct 4, but also with the LGBTQ plus advisory board there. But could you tell me more about this need for a unified voice, a unified message?
Speaker 5:Of course. So when we think of all of the tragedies that Atlantis just touched upon right, when we think about community being killed because of anti-trans violence, when we think about natural kind of Houston, harris County, a lot of times LGBTQIA plus people are really left out of those kind of traditional social support systems. So when we think about disaster response coming from Harris County or from the city of Houston, it's typically not thought of through the lens of an LGBTQIA plus community or even just looking at the lens of how can we best serve the marginalized right or even the hyper marginalized, those communities. And so that's really where this need for Queens Houston kind of came from. And that's why our mission is to proactively support and empower LGBTQIA plus organizations to ensure effective, inclusive and equitable emergency and crisis response strategies for the community, with a focus on the hyper-marginalized. And so really we are trying to do the work of creating this social support system, creating this empowerment network, as we call it, to be able to take care of our own in the face of whatever disaster, tragedy kind of strikes. Right, glen has definitely touched upon the kind of unified response in the face of anti-trans violence, of which, unfortunately, there were two murders this year, but also looking at how can we take care of our community when there is another hurricane or when there's another natural disaster.
Speaker 5:A lot of times community doesn't necessarily feel safe seeking services from the city of Houston or from Harris County, or they may not even know necessarily where to go right and our elected officials may not realize that our community members need this kind of specific care and attention.
Speaker 5:And so that's really where I think a lot of this work is kind of born from this need of our community to take care of attention. And so that's really where I think a lot of this work is is kind of born from this need of our community to take care of us. And this is something that we've done historically right. When we're looking at the HIV AIDS crisis, right, it was our community mostly lesbian women right that took care of gay men during this kind of epidemic, right.
Speaker 5:Even looking at the most recent Impox health crisis, right, our community really was the one kind of leading the effort to one push vaccinations for the community, for people to get vaccinated that could, but then also really fighting. I personally did this. I spoke at city council, I spoke at commissioner's court advocating for expanded vaccination guidelines to allow more of our community members to be able to get vaccinated against mpox, and so, looking at our history, this is something that we're extremely familiar with. It's something that we've always done, and so, really, this is not something new for us to do, but it is new specifically within the space of Houston and Harris County.
Speaker 3:One thing would be identifying and navigating people to resources. As Austin mentioned a lot of times, we're not in that thought plan, right. So by us being in these spaces and reaching out to other organizations hey, what resources do you have, how do you go there? The goal is and also telling them what we need. I think a lot of times when people think about Houston's LGBT community, they think about Montrose and all that. But we're no longer in the gayborhood, we're all around Houston. So the need is bigger and it's more stretched. The resources have to be in those spaces. So, queens of Houston, our goal is to help people get in those spaces. Our goal is to help to provide emergency kits, hurricane preparation kits and all those things.
Speaker 3:It's hard to just say one thing, because each need is unique for different spaces. Not everybody may need a hurricane kit. Maybe someone just needs a space to cool off and be able to access the internet, you know. So I think that it sounds like an easy answer, but sometimes it's not an easy answer. But I will say the easier answer for this is just take care of the human body.
Speaker 4:And Atlantis. I'd also like to ask about the process of supporting victims family members, and you mentioned vigils, so could you kind of walk us through what happens immediately after a murder is reported and HPD is made aware, what happens step by step. What happens from there?
Speaker 3:Sure, no problem. So normally it would just be people jumping on the mic. But this year we decided to change the process. Now when a person has been, when a trans individual or a community member has been taken away from us, first thing I do is connect with our HPD liaison. They give me their information what's going on? Sometimes I may have to help identify the body or the individual, but then from there we normally would just start posting about it.
Speaker 3:But this time we're being a little bit more strategic and taking back some of our power and our assets. So now when we do that, we talk with our community members, ie Queens of Houston. What's going on here, the logistics, here's the plan, and from there we make our plan. And until HPD has said it's okay to release the information, we sit on the information. But, as I said, social media could be a double-edged sword and sometimes when we get on there and we run wild with information, we're not realizing that the person who committed the crime may be watching social media also and learning how to avoid us and avoid spaces where they could be taken into custody, right. So from that we will sit and make. We have to block out time for media to speak with us. Only At this time, on this day. This is the only time to speak with us. Then we will start planning the visual. But what we ask of the media is that they, as much as they're recording and want access to our bad information, that they also support our good information. Celebrate us when we're doing good things, like Black Trans Empowerment Week or the launching of Queens of Houston anything that's positive in LGBT Houston's LGBT community. We need to start highlighting that. We don't always need to be supporting messages of trauma.
Speaker 3:So from there we would do the visual. We ask the news people not to, or media not to interview people at that moment. Let that space be a visual. But in the midst of doing that, we are speaking to the family or we have a person that is a liaison to the family. What people don't realize is that this family has lost a member of their family that they love, regardless of how we may see them as our chosen family. The biological family has the rights unless somebody, unless that person has put it in their will or written it up for us to have access to take first stand.
Speaker 3:But other than that, we work with navigating the family, make sure they're OK with the visual and this and that. Yes, we may want to celebrate them, but we have to be respectful of the family as well as the individual. We can still celebrate people and not be disrespectful, Right, They'll celebrate people and not be disrespectful, right, and a lot of times, these family members maybe just the first time ever interacting with somebody outside of their individual family member. So from that, we do the visual, we navigate that, we call out media if they're misgendering, if they're not doing this. But here's the thing about this, Davis, I want to say that there is a perfect plan.
Speaker 3:Traditionally that we say we walk this way. The goal wasn't to develop a perfect plan. The goal was to develop a humane plan, Right, that was really respectful of the human life that was taken away, especially that of a LGBT member in Houston, and to highlight that these are going on a number of times and most times we do not catch the person or catch anyone that is connected with the crime. But I am happy to say, within the past two situations that we have had this year, we have had some arrests done.
Speaker 5:I think sometimes as community, whenever we are faced with a tragedy, our gut instinct, our response is to jump on social media and to start posting about it, to start talking about the person that was murdered, killed, assaulted, whatever it may be Right, before really HPD or the sheriff's office or whatever law enforcement agency has been able to take the time to really do their due diligence to understand the situation right.
Speaker 5:We've seen situations in the past, specifically in Houston, where there has been rumors or there has been misinformation about the LGBTQIA plus identity of a person and specifically I remember this was an instance with the shooter at Lakewood and there was a lot of rumors going around on social media that this person was trans. People started posting about it, started running with it, ultimately turned out not to be true, right, and so I think the the importance here is that when we are faced with tragedy in our community, we understand that people want to uplift that person that was taken from our community, that people want to uplift that person that was taken from our community, that people want to tell their story, but we also have to understand that we need law enforcement time to be able to really do their due diligence in identifying the victim and seeing if there is any possibility of catching the perpetrator, finding evidence right.
Speaker 6:You're listening to Queer Voices on 90.1 KPFT, and this is Brett, and I'm joined by my husband, lee Ingalls. We host a podcast that is separate from this one called the Prairie Rainbow Review, and this segment is actually an episode that we did about the upstairs lounge fire.
Speaker 7:Right, which took place in June of 1970, just two months before I moved to Baton Rouge. So I remember it kind of, although, as you'll hear in the episode, it wasn't well talked about or the newspaper media did not share much about it at all. Yeah, yeah. So, from my perspective, I think capturing our history, remembering our history and timestamp, some of these things is important, that we do that, not just for today, but going forward, and that's what this episode is about and you kind of have a real interest in history, you really bring that to the table a lot.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's grounded in who I am as a person. My whole family have told their stories through books and other media as well. So, yes, it's very important.
Speaker 6:Well, spoiler alert, your last name is Ingalls. Yeah, yeah so, laura Ingalls Wilder. There you go. Yeah, little House on the Prairie, but the upstairs lounge fire was interesting because it was probably the worst casualties in a gay club up until the Pulse shootings in Orlando, yep, so yeah, yeah that, and you know, as time went on and you read about it, the details of what actually took place changed.
Speaker 7:So I, you know, looked it up very early on and what took place at that period of time was just horrific. And the fact that the fire took place at all and then it lasted for several days, and then family members not wanting to claim their their deceased loved ones, it was not good.
Speaker 6:Well, one of the reasons I wanted to bring this to the Queer Voices audience is that we are entering a time when violence is becoming just like everywhere. It seems like we are not as safe in our spaces anymore, and the upstairs lounge can really teach us a lot about safety and going to a club and recognizing. How do you get out, what do you need to look at? What safety concerns do you have?
Speaker 7:Yeah, Well, you know, every time that I go into a space, I always look for where are the exits and how do I get there?
Speaker 6:Yes, absolutely, and that's one of the things that I think made this tragedy so unique is they really had no way to get out. They didn't, yeah, I guess back then they probably didn't enforce the safety code that we have today. They didn't yeah, because back then they probably didn't enforce the safety code that we have today. But always look, always know, definitely. So with that, please enjoy our segment on the upstairs fire, or Would enjoy being a good word, I think. Learn something from the history. Yes.
Speaker 7:Capturing history.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 7:Hi everyone, thank you for joining us. Today. We're going to talk about a piece of our history that doesn't often get talked about, and if you know me, you know capturing history, capturing the sense of a period of time, is very important, very important. This one on June 24th of 1973, there was a fire at a bar in New Orleans at the upstairs lounge is what the bar was called. This happened two months before I moved to Baton Rouge, so I remember hearing about this story, but it surprised me even at the time at the lack of news coverage that it actually got. During that fire, there were 32 people that lost their lives and another 15 that were injured, and the details of the fire are as bad as you can imagine. Yeah, do you want to go over some of those details?
Speaker 6:Well, they aren't totally sure of how the events transpired because obviously it's an unsolved case. Right, their main suspect, roger Dale Nunez. He was thrown out of the bar earlier that day and he supposedly set fire to the bar. He obviously went to Walgreens and bought some lighter fluid and he lit the front entrance on fire, but he later claimed that he didn't think it would go up as fast as it did, right.
Speaker 6:So but he was never convicted of it and I think that they didn't know. He tried to talk to him and he had some kind of jaw problem. There was all this weird stuff. It really spoke to the fact that they didn't really prosecute anybody or investigated it very hard. It was a very strange kind of occurrence, but it held the record of the deadliest attack on a gay club in US history until, of course, 2016, with the Orlando nightclub shooting at Pulse. So it's one of those that should have gotten a lot more coverage than it did. But because it happened in 1973, I think people didn't quite cover it as much. I think even the mayor at the time really didn't, until he was pressed Right right, right, yeah, and the details of it are kind of horrific.
Speaker 7:So, as you said, that gentleman, they suspect did start. It was kicked out of the bar earlier in the day and from what I understand in reading it and keep in mind, I've followed this over the years, so the details of what actually happened even now continue to change. So the way that it was initially reported was the bar apparently had a locked door, that you had to ring a bell and somebody had to let you in. You couldn't just walk up to the bar, which was located on the second floor, and get in. You had to be let in. So this person put the accelerant on the steps, rang the bell and when somebody came to let him in, the staircase was already on fire. When they opened the door, the fire burst into the bar itself.
Speaker 7:There was a back door and apparently that person that opened the door initially gathered about 20 people and they were able to get out that back door, but somehow when they got out the door they locked it and the people that were left in weren't able to get out that door.
Speaker 7:So the people the 20 people escaped using getting to a roof on a building next door. The rest of them were trapped and there were bars on the windows, so they weren't able to get out the window either, and there was at least one person that was stuck in the window. You could tell that they were trying to get out, but they died there in the window, and initial reports of that said that he was there for days and visible to the people in the street for days. But now if you read about it, they're saying it was hours. So you know, I don't know where the truth in that actually lies, but I mean, it doesn't matter Hours or days. It's still a horrific thing to have happen and to have happened to your legacy. Yeah, I mean, that's what took place.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it was a lot to take in and a lot of stuff that happened and it sounds just horrific to even think about and more horrific in that nobody really paid a lot of attention because it was a gay bar, I mean, and that's just the time that they were in, right?
Speaker 7:Nobody really cared, and so the you know, the markers of the time are one you're right, it was a gay bar, so nobody was really that concerned about it. It didn't hit the front page the way that it should have. And another one that just really speaks to where we were as a society. Some of the family members of those victims didn't even want to claim their relative. They wanted to let the city manage the burying their family member.
Speaker 6:Burying their family member, which is just to me remarkable, but that's the way it was then One of the things that's kind of interesting is it has a lot of connections to the Metropolitan Community Church Most people call them MCC. A lot of their congregants were there that night and this was like the third arson attack on MCC. There was one at their headquarters in Los Angeles in 1973. There was another one in Nashville Didn't have any injuries, thankfully, but it did destroy the church and its furnishings and things like that. That was also in 73.
Speaker 6:So this was kind of a third arson attack basically against this church, which was typically accepting of gay members, right. So I mean, it was definitely one of those things where you kind of think about it in a larger scale, although it sounds like, if we go with the story that they're giving, it sounded like it was just a disgruntled person who had been thrown out, right right and had some kind of weird mental lapse or something, and right that's. And then the horrible thing is obviously gay bars were designed not to be very easily accessible. Obviously, yeah, and they wanted to keep people out accessible. Obviously yeah, and they wanted to keep people out. So obviously the the locking of the doors and the bars on the windows and things like that they were to protect the people inside, but they didn't think they would trap them inside. I mean, I think that's what the horrible part of it is, and it happened about eight o'clock at night on that day. So that was, uh, one of the things. That's hard to believe that it was that early in the evening as well.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and it's, you know, like many times or many events like this. It's kind of a series of events that lead up to how, just how bad it was. The fire department wasn't that far away. I can think of block or two, because it was in the New Orleans French Quarter. The parking and sidewalks and everything were crowded, crowded.
Speaker 6:They weren't able to get to it as quickly as they otherwise would have been able to, so that was a factor that played into you know how quickly and horribly it went well, it's like some of the churches refused to hold funerals for the victims, yeah, and that was a big, a big deal as well, and it kind of reminds me of kind of what's to come with the AIDS epidemic. There was definitely a lot of that where churches didn't necessarily leap forward to hold services there either. This one was definitely one of those serious moments in time where they did that as well, right right.
Speaker 7:So you had two situations there. Some of them refused to hold the services. Those that did held the services, but they also were bombarded with hate mail afterwards and the people that went to those services coming and going through a side door so that they couldn't be or wouldn't be photographed going to the service. But and now they're they're saying that that that was one of the markers of the time, as they refused to do that and use the front entrance, kind of saying we're no longer doing this, we are no longer ashamed of this.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, it's hard to believe that that would be something that would would. Something that would happen Seems crazy, and some of the victims were never identified until much later. I mean, it sounds like they weren't even identified until maybe 2018, as recently as that Right.
Speaker 7:There's still two, I think, that have not been identified, but initially there was three, and I think there was one that was identified in 2018, as you said, it's amazing to think that you can just disappear and nobody know, or anything like that.
Speaker 6:That seems just crazy to me.
Speaker 7:It does to me too, and that kind of gets to this thing that you've heard me say so often is that people try to erase your history. And not claiming your family member or not saying my brother lived in New Orleans and suddenly, as of that date, I haven't heard from him since then, is just remarkable to me. You know, I was a young man, I was an adult at that time. So, as I said, I do remember it somewhat. The details of it have changed over the years, but back in those days I mean I was kind of I had found our community and I was kind of an in-your-face kind of guy. I was not shy about being gay, and those that shied away from it to me were the older generation, those that grew up in the bars being raided and having their photos posted in the newspaper and their names and losing their jobs. That was a generation before me and I knew that. So I was a little bit more defined than what these people were.
Speaker 6:Well, it sounds like there weren't any protests, if I'm right. I mean, it sounds like the gay reporters went after the mayor for not really talking about the angle that it was gay and things like that, but it doesn't sound like that. Anybody like rose up and protested in the streets.
Speaker 7:Oh no, cause it wasn't really a hate crime like we see today.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it was just kind of a tragedy but I think it's a tragedy that all these people didn't get claimed or identified, or and that they really didn't pursue the investigation all that hard.
Speaker 7:That's the saddest part of the whole thing is the you know the world was willing to turn their back on them and act as though it didn't happen and they don't matter. That was the saddest part.
Speaker 6:It's interesting the building hasn't changed owners. It actually now is a business office and there's also a kitchen for a lounge called the Jumaane Lounge, which was established a little bit before this incident and I think they were established in 71. And obviously the owner actually witnessed the fire in its aftermath. I mean, obviously it just seems crazy. It was a third floor, was owned by the upstairs lounge and they said that it remains unused and partially damaged. If they kept it that way, it's crazy. Yeah, that sounds like kind of a wild history of the building that it still kind of has a little bit of the scars of all of that from that far back this many years later. Yeah, yeah, they did celebrate the well not celebrate mark the 25th anniversary with the Metropolitan Community Church in 1998, and they held a service to commemorate the deaths and the Orson and things like that.
Speaker 7:And they've done a couple of things since then. Yeah, in 2003, they placed the memorial plaque on the sidewalk in front of the building, and then there is a documentary that's out. A webpage is dedicated to it. I've posted that on my social media pages and there is a documentary that's out as well. We haven't watched the documentary.
Speaker 6:No, and I was saying that we should. Obviously we've got it on our radar. One of the things that's interesting is the documentary. There's actually two. There's one that was made in like 2015 and one that was made in 2018, but the more recent one in 2018 has Anne Rice's son, Christopher actuallyates it Because obviously he has a lot of connections to the gay community in New Orleans, things like that, so he's obviously going to be a very likely ally and somebody that wants that history preserved and things like that so interesting that he got involved on kind of commemorating and honoring that history and really keeping that alive.
Speaker 6:Because I think it's one of those things that you just don't see, you don't hear about this. It's one of those things that I think I was out for a long time before I even heard about it.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, and I had forgotten it for many, many years and I recently became aware of it again. That was when I say recently, probably 15 years ago, and started following it and reading it and all the changes that occurred over that time. I'm sorry. I guess the documentary dates wrong.
Speaker 6:It's 2013 and 2015. Upstairs Inferno is the one with Christopher Rice, and that was 2015. So just to kind of keep that, there was ABC News in 2018, did a documentary and that's what I was thinking of Pride and Prejudice and Pride Fire at the Upstairs Lounge. They did do that.
Speaker 7:Yeah, so I'm glad to see there's more information out there. That, yeah, so I'm glad to see there's more information out there. But you know, again, going back to our purpose capturing the history, making sure that those events that are important in our community are remembered, those people that perished in that fire. We still talk about them as well.
Speaker 6:Well, how do you think that their legacy can live on? I mean, that's one of the things. That's my question to you. I mean obviously are out there, but how do we keep them up the forefront?
Speaker 7:yeah, because I can. I can guarantee you, if you look at the history for those people, you're not going to find very much. It's not likely that they're going to be remembered for much more than this event. So, yeah, I mean and that in itself is sad, but I mean most people are going to kind of disappear in history. So it's only you know, through efforts like ours, that we keep talking about it, that they'll remain in the front of our minds.
Speaker 6:Yeah, what do you think can help with educating people about it and things like that? I mean, obviously a lot of the documentaries are out there. We've got the television specials and obviously we're talking about doing podcasting and things like that. The documentaries are out there, we've got the television specials, and then obviously we're talking about doing podcasting and things like that, and it sounds like they have a plaque, which seems a little bit underwhelming when you think about the significance of the event.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, you know. All changes, you know, happen one step at a time. So I agree with you, I think that's a little bit underwhelmingming, but it is something that would not have been done at the time that they lived and this event happened. So it did change, and what we're doing kind of changes, that as well yeah, yeah, well, you know.
Speaker 6:Even pulse, though I mean I remember pulse very vividly, obviously because it happened more recently, yeah, and obviously in the early 70s. I'm not going to be as aware of the, the news cycles and things like that as I was more recently and I thought that Pulse had a little, it had a more appropriate response, I think, from the media and from things like that. I really did see that happen. So I think there is hope that something like the Upstairs Lounge isn't going to be a common event or that people are going to dismiss it again. I think that's one of the things that I hope. Yeah, I hope so too. Yeah, and it only took 16 minutes in total the entire fire. So that was how quick that kind of thing happened and it does kind of speak to I know you have a kind of a thing about looking at spaces and trying to figure out if they're safe and how you can get out.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, it's events like this that make me think. You know, they're not necessarily designed for people to escape. So when we go into a space, especially an older building that's been retrofitted for something else, I look If something happens, how am I going to get out of here? So yeah, you're absolutely right, I know where the windows are, I know where the doors are.
Speaker 6:Yeah, but it sounded like here it was really hard because of the bars and the locked doors and all of that. I mean, obviously now you know, that's one of the reasons why I think businesses have those things. These doors must remain unlocked. This has to happen. People have to have access to get out All those kind of things. It's really, I mean, it's just so horrific when you think about it. And New Orleans, I mean obviously famously old buildings and not taken care of as well. Probably back then, like you said, just they went up so quickly. I think that's one of the things that was just really sad about it. Well, this is a sobering topic. It is.
Speaker 7:Not one that we like to talk about. We usually try to keep our podcast kind of light On occasion. There are times that we need to talk about something that's a little bit more deep and, like I said, it's a timestamp for the time that it happened and capturing that, talking about it so that people will understand what was going on with society at that particular time.
Speaker 6:Well, I think what's wild is to think about that it was June 24th. Yeah, I mean that was during Pride Month. I mean, obviously it wasn't called Pride Month at that point no well, the pride stuff actually started in 1969.
Speaker 7:Oh, four years later is when this took place.
Speaker 6:Well, I mean, obviously I don't think that we had the widespread right acknowledgement of a pride month. I think we were probably marking stonewall right at some point. I mean, and obviously I think that those things happened in the usual suspect places like new york la.
Speaker 7:New Orleans would have been one of those, I would think.
Speaker 6:We'll have to look at that and see what the history of New Orleans Pride is and what their thing is. It'll be interesting to compare and contrast. Of course, now we're headed into July, so I think we'll save that Maybe something to talk about next year. Update next year? Yes, all right. Well, I'm glad that you wanted to bring this one up. Pass by, and it's something that needs to be memorialized a little bit more than it is. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6:Hey, this is brett cullum, and today I am joined by scenic designer and alley theaters director of design, michael looker, and we are talking about an ambitious project. The company is taking on the da vinci code. Now you probably know about. It is a famous book by dan brown. It was adapted into a very big movie starring tom Hanks. And books and movies they are quite different mediums than stage work. So we are here about the challenge of bringing this story to the Alley Theater. The show opens on September 19th. It runs through October 19th. It's a perfect fall mystery for you. The pre-sale for this one has been so strong that five shows have already been added, but we are here to talk about sets and design elements and things like that. So, michael, my first question is how many locations do you have to create here?
Speaker 8:You know it's not a good sign when a designer loses track of how many and can't answer that question reflexively. It's a lot. It's a lot, I mean. The obvious challenge about this play is that it has a big cinematic feel to it and every single one of those locations in Dan Brown's story is a spectacular real world place the Louvre, westminster Abbey, rosslyn Chapel and part of the joy of experiencing the Da Vinci Code as an audience member is being wowed by those settings. So we knew we needed to find ways to go big and to deliver spectacle and to deliver those locations.
Speaker 6:Well, that's the big trick here. I mean, not only is this a lot of locations, but these are locations that people in the audience have probably either seen a million times on photos or TV or have actually been to. I mean, these are tourist destinations where people just love these places and they know what the set already looks like. I mean, they know what your inspiration is Exactly. That's a tall order. So what do you do as a designer? How do you approach that? I mean it's like you can't really half do it. I mean, it's so true.
Speaker 8:It's so true? I mean, it's a couple of part answer here. I mean, on one hand, we always start with research. No matter what show you're doing, no matter how abstract or how or how experimental the project is, you always start with something primary, just to get a sense of what, what your frame of reference is. And here the frame of reference, of course, is not just, is not just these real locations, which are iconic locations, and, as you said, people know what they like, they've been there, they've taken pictures there. Our director, rob Melrose, went to these locations on a different trip this summer and took pictures of these places to make sure we knew what we were doing.
Speaker 8:On the other hand, you know people have expectations that relate to their experience with this as a pop culture phenomenon, right. So you know it's important for us to remember that. You know, theater can be spectacle driven, but it's not film. And when there are so many big locations in a show that you have to travel between quickly, you need to lean into what theater is better at than movies, which is, I'd say, I'd argue it's finding clever ways to paint a picture without building the whole cathedral on stage. So what do you show, what do you not show? How does it all work? There's a lot of imagination right, and sometimes encouraging audiences' imagination in ways that don't really work in movies are really exciting on stage. Well, let's backtrack a little bit.
Speaker 6:Tell me how long you've been with the Alley, because this obviously is not your first production.
Speaker 8:No, it's not Great question. I came to the Alley not long after my good friend and longtime artistic partner, Rob Melrose, became the artistic director at the Alley. He joined the Alley in 2019. And by late 2019, I was there as well, so I've been at the Alley about six years with this position the director of design. So you guys were like a package deal. I'm a package deal.
Speaker 8:You know, rob and I are both from Northern California, from the San Francisco Bay Area, and when he took this and announced he was moving, I immediately, of course, was thinking about how much time I would be spending in Houston from that time forward.
Speaker 6:And here I am, living here. Well, your title scenic designer and Alley Theatre's director of design. How do you define that role? That's a great question, I'm still working on that.
Speaker 8:As you said, I'm a set designer by training and I've been a set designer and a theatre educator for my entire career. It's an interesting role. I'm part of the artistic leadership team at the Alley. I work alongside very closely with Rob and other members of the leadership team and the artistic leadership, working on things like programming and creative staffing, reading new plays. Really, what I'll say is that is the fun part of running a theater company. At the same time, in addition to being involved in all these creative things around the company, I'm sort of a de facto resident set designer, so I get to design a few key productions at the LA every season and I'm deeply involved in creative staffing. So I play a key role in helping to bring other designers into projects, whether I'm designing those shows or not. Building teams of designers I admire or whose work I've envied is a really interesting part of the job as well.
Speaker 6:So you get a little bit of input into the season choices. Are you ever like when they present something? Are you like? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 8:We can't do this. This is a great example of that. This is a great example of the DaVinci.
Speaker 6:Code itself no-transcript things like that. How do you go about doing that? Is it similar to actors? Do they audition? Do they send portfolios?
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's a great question, I mean, and anyone working in this field, you know, spends a lot of their early career figuring out how this process works, and now that I'm involved in this part of the process, a lot of my friends and colleagues, fellow designers, who are veterans of the field, come to me with curiosity how does this process work? Because, you know, as a very young, emerging designer, you are sending out cover letters and you are sending out your portfolio and you are asking for interviews. That's certainly a part of the process, but anyone that works in professional theater at this level knows that the job has just sort of come to you. You have a, you have a network of associates. Your name gets out there, and people become curious about working with you and they ask For me.
Speaker 8:I'll say that another part of being a designer in this field, though, is being really, really jealous of other people's work.
Speaker 8:It's you spend a lot of time looking, looking at portfolios, looking at production photos, thinking, wow, that's a beautiful shot. Wow, who designed this project, and so part of the fun for me of this position has been taking that experience, the experience of really just tracking what my friends and colleagues are doing and being excited and impressed and often really super jealous about how beautiful their work is and then thinking, well, wait a second. Now I could say that that designer, they'd be perfect for this show and this lighting designer would be perfect for understanding this set concept. For instance, the lighting designer on this show is an old friend of mine, tom Weaver, who I thought of immediately when I began designing this show, when I began conceiving the stage pictures that I had in mind for the Dimitri Code. There's a certain style, a certain sort of aggressive spirit of experimentation in his lighting. It's bold, it's noir-ish, it's never tepid, and I knew immediately that someone like Tom was the right guy for this job.
Speaker 6:You know, lights are so critical. I really think that, you know, I don't think that audiences realize how much that plays into the mood and the way that things move through a play and the way that you tell it, and I think it's one of those arts that people really don't think about as hard as they probably should, because it is. It can affect a performance just as much as you know the actors out there.
Speaker 8:Absolutely. I mean the pure physics of it are. You know, you the? You only see what the lighting designer allows you to see, and you only see things the way the light, the way the actual light hitting the object permits you to see. It that you really begin to cultivate an affinity for lighting designers that seem to understand your skin tone or the kind of design ideas you have as a designer. A beautiful set could be, frankly, ruined by a lighting designer who doesn't understand what the intention of the set is, and vice versa. The number of times I've come up with something that I'm proud of on stage and a lighting designer has surprised me with how much better they make it look or how well they understand what we were going for. Those experiences are great, and so it's part of the reason why we have lots of partnerships in theater that come up again and again, why directors go back to certain actors repeatedly, or why a lighting designer and a set designer may often find themselves working together this.
Speaker 6:In this show you've got a couple of things. I think that chris hutchins it's his 100th show. It's his 100th show and he's playing silas. He's playing silas, the villainous monk, exactly. So you've got to fight him in a way that probably isn't flattering the book he's described as albino, isn't he?
Speaker 8:he's albino in the book and he's and Paul Bettany, who played him in the film, sort of carries, carries an albino sort of quality. I would. Yeah, I would say that Chris's performance in this is just terrific so far, and and it's also just one of those roles that makes me understand that I'm not cut out to be an actor the things that he has to do to himself and the way he has to present himself on stage and this is before we get we were in the theater with with the kind of aggressive lighting he's going to be subject to is it's a, it's a pretty remarkable surrender to the craft.
Speaker 6:Well, I'm definitely looking for that one. That's going to be a tough character to bring to life. Well, what do you hope in this current show, the Da Vinci code design wise? How hope in this current show, the Da Vinci Code design-wise? How do you hope that this, your work, kind of helps to tell the story what?
Speaker 8:do you hope that the audience catches? Ah, that's a good question. Well, I would you know. I would say first of all, on one hand, the show is, you know, it's packed with technology. We have big, moving scenery, we have cutting edge lighting equipment, powerful projectors. At the same time, I'm really proud that the show is genuine theater. It's not just a movie on stage, it's terrific actors and hands-on stagecraft working live.
Speaker 8:I would point to something else, actually not my work specifically, but another designer on the project's work. We have a brilliant costume designer, helen Wong, and it's interesting. When you engage a story that happens to be a pop culture phenomenon, a lot of your audience has expectations because they know these characters from the book or from the film. At the same time, um, you know, we have to do more than simply recreate what tom hanks wore on screen, and helen does such a great job of distilling the spirit of these characters down, giving everyone a fresh look while still telling the story in a way that feels familiar, and I am so proud of her and so impressed with her work.
Speaker 8:At the same time, I think I've done something along those lines as well, created scenery and locations on stage that are big and that are spectacular but really really couldn't be further from a film set or couldn't be further from just taking these big iconic locations and, brick by brick, putting them on stage. There's a lot of very figurative, figurative composition in this piece from a design perspective. Lots of things that are very but very much ask the audience to fill in blanks with their eyes and with their mind in ways that I think are really elegant and really interesting. So I'm excited for people to come in and see something which is both big and also it's big and it's spectacle driven but also has some really really interesting design ideas that really lean into again what's great about theater and film are different mediums.
Speaker 6:Well, it's interesting. What would you say? And I'm just going to ask this silly question Sure, do you think it leans more towards the book or the movie?
Speaker 8:That is a great question, you know, I'll say to me it feels like it leans more towards the book in pure content. But at the same time, you know, you can look at the film and our stage adaptation as sort of accomplishing similar tasks. Both say let's take this story and let's bring it to life in an exciting way. And so I think that, you know, in that sense it feels parallel to or adjacent to the film. I think it lives alongside the film as another example of taking these words on a page and sort of, you know, injecting them and energizing them and making them real. But again, I think what's so fun about it is the way you can compare these media. You can compare the way the novel looks and feels and the way the movie looks and feels and the way our production looks and feels, and really appreciate that it's the same story and that the through line between them is Dan Brown's fun ideas about these characters and these locations and history, and that you can experience this movie, this book, this play in three different ways.
Speaker 6:It's so fun I have. My spouse loves to see the movie first and then go back and read the book. I am one of those people that I have to read the book first because I don't want my interpretation of this colored by anyone else. I want my imagination to go in there. So it's so fun when you get to see somebody like yourself get to bring this world to life and kind of design it for their own space and the space that you've been working in forever. So it's very cool. Thank you so much, Michael, Really looking forward to seeing your work with this one and, of course, the alley always just excellent technical stuff. I mean I couldn't be more proud of the work that the alley does for the Houston community as far as technical elements, and so it's always impeccable. So thank you for taking the time to talk about it.
Speaker 8:I appreciate that. Thank you, Come see the Da Vinci Code everyone.
Speaker 6:Yes, september 19th through October 19th and I don't know. I have a feeling that they'll probably add some more in there somewhere.
Speaker 1:This has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage queervoices for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 9:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt.
