Los Angeles LGBT Center Hosts 'Big Queer Convo: 50 Years Of Queer Theatre'

The Los Angeles LGBT Center announces Big Queer Convo: 50 Years of Queer Theatre, one in a series of Big Queer Convos devoted to documenting the impact of LGBT people on the entertainment and news media over the last half-century. Part of a year-long celebration of the Center's 50th Anniversary, this event is set for Monday, November 11, at 7pm at the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre. Big Queer Convo is special event series dedicated to providing a community forum for the LGBTQ community to have those difficult conversations on topics that are sensitive and/or controversial in nature.

The panel will explore the attitudes, changes, and landmarks in the portrayal in theatre of the LGBT community from the late 1960s through present day. Scheduled panelists are Adelina Anthony, Leo Garcia, Alison De La Cruz, and Michael A. Shepperd. The moderator will be Jon Imparato.

Adelina Anthony is a critically acclaimed and award-winning two-spirit Xicana lesbian writer/actor/director/producer working primarily in the mediums of film and theatre. She is currently directing D'Lo's solo play To T, or not To T? at the Center's Davidson/Valentini Theatre. Leo Garcia is a performance curator, producer, award-winning playwright, filmmaker, and actor. Since 2003 he has served as both Artistic and Executive Director of Highways Performance Space where he has developed and presented over 800 performance works. His work is influenced by the didactic of agitprop and inspired by the optimism of naiveté. Alison De La Cruz is the VP of Programs at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) and is an executive arts leader, producer, facilitator, educator, multi-disciplinary theatre artist, contemporary ritualist, and cultural space instigator. Michael A. Shepperd is the award-winning Artistic Director of Celebration Theatre, the oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, two-spirited, allied, asexual, cis-gender, gender non-binary theatre in the country. He has been creating both queer and non-queer works in LA for the last 20 years. Jon Imparato worked as an actor in New York for 25 years before making the switch to producing. In 1998 he was tapped by the Los Angeles LGBT Center to be Artistic Director of the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center, a program he created for the Center, where he has proudly served for the last 21 years.

Admission is free, but reservations are required at www.lalgbtcenter.org/theatre. A hosted reception will follow the panel. The Los Angeles LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place (one block east of Highland, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard), in Hollywood, 90038.

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