As a Black, queer, trans nonbinary actor in Central Florida, I sometimes feel … ignored, invisible. Or at the very least, expendable.
It’s that moment all Black actors talk about: “Girl, I was the random black girl wailing gospel in the back of the ensemble,” or “The role had to be Black, and since apparently no other Black actors exist, they called me.” This weird period of dark theatres during the pandemic has made me feel … seen, in some ways.
COVID-19 coincided with massive national protests for Black Lives Matter, as well as a theatrical revolution in New York City. Black artists banded together to show Broadway (historically also called The Great White Way, do with that what you will) that we were here, and demanded a seat — no, multiple seats — at the table.
They created a list of demands, written for the edification of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) in theatrical settings as actors, designers, producers, playwrights. The ripples from that were felt nationwide, in both community and professional theatre. If you’re curious, that document can be found here at WeSeeYouWAT.com.
During quarantine, I had more conversations than ever about the way I had been treated as a Black, nonbinary actor. What to do about the “lack” of Black creatives or when a Black actor didn’t show up; whether “nontraditional casting” worked both ways (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). About pronouns and representation. Phone calls, text messages, emails, Zoom meetings … people were learning that things they had done or said to me or other actors were completely inappropriate. Microaggressions, or everyday happenings that show a negative or prejudicial view of a marginalized group, were brought up to their perpetrators. Theatres that didn’t make a public statement of solidarity with the Black community, or that were anecdotally viewed as anti-Black, were called out by actors in the community.
During Pride, I wrote poems, essays and think pieces about straddling the Black and LGBTQ communities. I grew frustrated that sometimes it felt like I was screaming into a void. I was even challenged by a childhood peer I hadn’t seen in years: “You’re barely Black. You have a white wife, do white stuff. You talk too much for someone not struggling.” As if the struggle itself isn’t in being Black. As if the Black community as a whole doesn’t ignore or outright vilify queer existence. Fighting against this lack of unity, this ignorance about the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness in every subculture has become my white whale, if you’ll forgive the expression, during the pandemic.
As COVID-19 disproportionately affected Black and Brown communities, so many schisms within those communities remained. As if me moving out of my childhood neighborhood and reaching for something better is a “white” state of mind. As if theatre, which has become very white, wasn’t founded on entertainment ideas stolen from Black people and performed gleefully wearing greasepaint caricatures of Black faces. As if every time there is a Black show created, it isn’t usurped and appropriated with a white version. As if I, personally, didn’t feel left in the revolution’s dust as the deaths of so many Black trans women in America go unmourned and unanswered for. I digress.
In pursuit of the desire to wreak some small version of revolutionary havoc, I feel as if I’ve aged a decade. I feel insane, as if I am slowly being eaten up by my own bitterness. I’ve felt invalidated, I’ve been dismissed. I’ve also been listened to. During COVID, when the world stopped, and people had more time … I experienced more love from my circle of friends than ever before. Friends of all races and orientations. My friend Caila, in particular, reminded me that I exist in the spirit of ancient people who were venerated for their otherness. My friend Derek reminded me that I exist in a space inhabited by beauty and truth; and that my mere existence, to some, is a glorious act of revolution. If you didn’t know, Black joy, in general, always has been a revolution. My friends Andy and Bern had conversations with me that proved what I already knew: that they saw and respected every facet of me. And my wife, Tiffany, loved me through every rage, every depression, every paranoid moment of fear of death from
COVID or police brutality. My mother listened in a way I had never appreciated that she could. My goddaughters and their parents, Louisa and Jamaal, brought me hope that we could do as much for the children as our grandparents and ancestors had for us.
Although many people turned to art for sanity during quarantine, COVID-19 put the theatrical world on pause from a performance standpoint. Behind the scenes, though, work was still being done. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still more to be done beyond virtue signaling and performative allyship. Beyond the arguments for arguments’ sake, and not in the name of actual progress. Beyond the Facebook dramas that made me take a heavy step back from social media. At the theatres I love, and will continue to work at, the work continues.
When we all open again, I pray, that we will be stronger and more unified. That somehow, we can adequately memorialize those who died during COVID in acts of love and art that help to create the America we pretend we are.
I will never be finished trying, until I am laid in earth.
Aladdin “A.J.” Demps is a public school theatre teacher, theatre director and actor, church musician and a writer. He reads too many books.
