2024 Year in Review
Unknown group of women, possibly from a theatrical production at Wellesley College. (Lincoln (MA) Town Archives)
Headmaster No. 10
In May, my partner Jason Tranchida and I released the tenth and final print edition of our magazine Headmaster. The issue is sports-themed and features 12 original projects about subjects including the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, problematic gay Canadian wrestler Pat Patterson, and the baffling rules of the US men’s gymnastic floor program. The cover features Australian duo The Huxleys [pictured], who were absolutely fantastic to work with, and this fall their project was exhibited at the Museum of Australian Photography. (You can buy the issue here.)
We will be celebrating soon, as we announce a new phase (evolution?) of the Headmaster project.
Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza
The six months from March to September were busy, busy, busy. We began to workshop with our choreographers in March, and by May our actors were ready to film movement-based sequences for the documentary. In April we were awarded a documentary filmmaking grant from Rhode Island Humanities, which (along with funding from Brown Arts Institute) helped us achieve this pretty monumental feat.
While that was happening, music director Adam Rineer was creating new arrangements for the 1896 musical performed in Newport by the Navy in 1919. We went to New York for a rehearsal in early June, he had scores ready a few days later, and quickly after that we recorded all the vocals. At the end of the month, we filmed all the musical numbers at an old and very hot theater in Easton, Massachusetts, with the actors lip-syncing to their own voices and MIDI piano. (This is also how Wicked was filmed, we were told.) Then we pulled together a ten-piece band of musicians and spent the first few days of July back in the studio recording them.
Then it was time for a July and August of editing and a round ofcrowdfunding to pay for post-production and installation costs. We opened a week after Labor Day and the show ran in Newport at Great Friends Meeting House for four weeks. (Thanks again to presenting sponsor Newport Historical Society for letting us use the space.) Hundreds of people came through, and we were actually there every day in person because it was our job to turn the speakers and projectors on every morning. We wrote and directed and produced this project and suddenly we were also projectionists and running the concession stand. (Well, passing out free water at least. September was warm.)
As the exhibition wrapped up, we began giving a series of talks about the project—to high schoolers at the Met School, documentary filmmaking students at Johnson & Wales University, and adults at Rhode Island Historical Society. (If you’d like us to talk to your class or group, drop a line!)
Right now we’re working to get the installation to travel, which is a new and exciting adventure for us.
Archival Work
Over the winter I wrapped up my fellowship with the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board, where I processed a collection related to two of the founding families in the town of Lincoln. This was a one-of-everything type of collection, where I worked largely with paper but also daguerreotypes, floppy disks, and even some hats and mittens. Though close to Boston, Lincoln is a proud rural community and on my last day I treated myself to lunch at Doherty’s Garage, a service station with a cash-only pizzeria attached to it. (Highly recommended if you’re ever in the area!)
This summer I took on my third contract project with Providence Public Library, this time in the library’s LGBTQ+ Community Archive. There I processed the records of the Rhode Island chapter of Project NAMES/AIDS Quilt RI. The quilt panels themselves are mostly in San Francisco (after a contentious decade and a half in Atlanta), but I got to see hundreds of photos of these fascinating memorials to local men and women who died of AIDS-related illnesses.
More recently, I’ve taken on my first personal archiving project, preparing papers and records that will be donated to a collection here in Providence. (If you’re in the northeast and interested in having something similar done with your own papers or those of a relative, drop a line and I’d be happy to talk with you.)
Writing
I spent most of my writing time this year editing audio, trying to condense all of the Scandalous Conduct reports into a coherent narrative that ran under an hour. This was not easy! The very few other things I wrote this year were about music: Sarah McLachlan’s album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, which I wrote about for Michele Catalano’s survey of albums from 1994; and Yelle’s late-00s banger “Je Veux Te Voir,” which I wrote about for March Danceness.
Next month I’m making another leap, this time back into the world of fiction. I think? Without revealing too much—who knows, it could all change anyway—it’s a fictionalized version of some actual events that happened during my childhood. I’ve been itching to write it for years. At the end of January I’m doing a ten-day residency at Providence’s Wedding Cake House, and hopefully that will give me a little reset/charge.
Semi-related to that, I just wrote my first freelance piece for my old hometown newspaper, about a high school production of Shrek The Musical. I watched a rehearsal a week before it premiered and it was all very cute.
Communications / Editorial
I’m also still doing some freelance communications work for local non-profits. This includes public relations, media relations, and promotional support for smaller organizations that lack the capacity to have a full-time communications/PR person on staff. There’s a lot coming up in the first few months of 2025 and I’m excited to play a part in it.
The Sales Pitch
As always, drop a line if you’re interested in my services, whether you need someone to write a press release, edit an essay, archive a collection of odd materials, talk about obscure gay Navy scandals or the state of niche art publishing, jury a group art show, or who knows what else.