Philly toasts Oscar

Award-worthy parties to get in on the red-carpet fun.

By Robert Strauss

For The Inquirer

Hooray for Philly-wood! It’s time to celebrate the Oscars, Philadelphia-style. Choose your red carpet and be glam as cinema’s premier awards showcase arrives this weekend.

Though the TV show will begin at 8 p.m. Sunday on 6ABC, there are live celebrations starting tonight and events planned through late Sunday. If you’d like to do it all at home with friends, you can also offer a red-carpet, tearful-speech spectacular.

Here are some options for local Oscar celebrations:

The alternative

The theme will be the same, but the entertainment may well be a little wilder at the Traverse Arts Project’s Second Annual Red Carpet Party, from 5 p.m. to midnight Sunday at the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, 17th and Locust Streets.

“We’re looking for a good crowd, a fun crowd,” said event organizer T. Desiree Hines, founder and executive director of the Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival, to which the proceeds of the Red Carpet Party will be donated.

In addition to a buffet and an open vodka/wine/beer bar, guests will get a red carpet photo with Michelle Dupree (also known as Scott Cooper), the recently crowned Miss’d America in the GLBT pageant that has substituted for the departed Miss America contest in Atlantic City. Pageant director Robert “Sandy Beach” Hitchen will emcee the event, and there will be a big-screen viewing of the televised Oscars, with commentary from Matthew Ray and Tom Cardwell, of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Keith Conallen, Creative Director

TAP/ Traverse Arts Project

Cell: 215-514-9934

traversetheater.org – kjc@traversetheater.org
January 30, 2010

New sketch comedy show begins in South Philadelphia

POP!-Sketch Comedy for the Gifted!
With a cornucopia of South Philadelphia actors, Traverse Arts Project(TAP) is looking at a blemish on the theatrical face of Philadelphia and desperately wants to POP it.

POP!-Sketch Comedy for the Gifted is intent on skewering pop culture in all of its many facets.  POP! wants to find the absurdist reality in all of our lives.  It takes a look at what makes us laugh, what makes us gasp, makes us cringe, and turns it around to view the funny underbelly.

After the first show on January 18^th, sketches and tech elements have been worked out for the upcoming episode for February 15^th.  With repeat characters and a whole new batch of funny, POP! is hoping to double their audience this time around.  In addition, POP! will be giving 30% percent of each ticket sold to Haiti Relief.  (mention something about the charity here)

Artistic Director for Traverse Arts Project, Mark A. Dahl conceived of a sketch show a year ago that would lampoon pop culture.  The plan was to use TAP’s point of view – a slightly skewed vision of reality that lays bare the true elements of our ridiculous nature and our human forgiveness.  One year later, POP! has opened their season to great applause and much confidence for the future with many laughs on tap.

While producing other TAP productions – last springs successful LGBT arts festival, Festivus, and for the 2008 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, TechLogic, a multidisciplinary journey through our lives and what effect technology has over us – Creative Director, Keith J. Conallen and Project Coordinator Sarah E. Leonard, both took the reigns to bring POP! to life.

POP! uses cast generated material in cooperation with a team of writers, lots of artistic collaboration and news culture to create the hour long sketchfest.

Traverse Arts Project is a non-profit arts organization. We seek to reveal a mirror of societal reflection that explores the diversity of thoughts and preferences within our society. We seek for the actors and audience to connect and reflect. Within this platform we work to spark thought that promotes comparison of one another. We seek to start conversations.

–

Keith J. Conallen

Creative Director

Traverse Arts Project

kjc@traversetheater.org

215-514-9934

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Traverse Arts Project News Desk

festivalenews@gmail.com info@traversetheater.org

Ph: 917-257-6451

Local arts organization to roll out red carpet to celebrate 2010 Academy® Nominations

• Miss’d America Pageant director and emcee Robert “Sandy Beach” Hitchen to host for Oscar® viewing benefit
• Sponsors include The Radisson-Warwick Philadelphia® and Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino® Las Vegas
• Event will feature a large-scale projection of the 82^nd annual Academy Awards®

On Sunday March 7, 2010, The Radisson-Warwick Philadelphia and Traverse Arts Project will present the 2^nd Annual Red Carpet Party. The event will feature a public screening of the 82^nd Annual Academy Awards® telecast live from Hollywood.

“This hotel has provided the backdrop for many an event in history,” said Jim Riker, General Manager of Philadelphia’s Grand Dame Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, “and we are pleased to be hosting this Oscar® event on March 7th.”

The event started in 2009, and was created by T. Desiree Hines, founder and executive director of the Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival, and Mark A. Dahl, founder and artistic director of Traverse Arts Project. Robert “Sandy Beach” Hitchen, director and host of the popular and recently resurrected Miss’D America Pageant will be the Red Carpet host for the event. Other hosts include award-winning composer Joseph Hallman and Mark A. Dahl. Hallman has received commissions from members of top ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mark A. Dahl was the assistant director, recording engineer, and production stage manager for the 2010 Miss’d America Pageant.

“In 2008, I contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences about hosting an Oscar event” Hines said. “They give very specific guidelines that must be followed by nonprofit organizations that host public Oscar® viewing parties as fundraisers which are not directly affiliated with the Academy®.” This event is not sponsored or affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “We have to be creative in our marketing and developing of the event, but it’s worth it in the end.”

Hines is best known in classical music circles as one of the country’s few African-American female pipe organists. She is also one of the most visible and out transsexual musicians in the U.S. She was the subject of an extensive cover story in the May 28, 2009 issue of Philadelphia CityPaper. “She’s On a Mission” by Citypaper’s Arts Editor Carolyn Huckabay, detailed challenges Hines faced being a transsexual organist and church leader.

The proceeds from the event will go to benefit Festivale! The 2^nd Annual Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival. Launched in 2009, the festival presents emerging performing and creative arts professionals who openly identify and represent the GLBT community. Last year’s festival attracted performing and visual artists from all over the U.S. and Canada. This year the headliners will be the Queer Urban Orchestra of New York and Transcendence Gospel Choir of San Francisco, the first ever all-transgender choir. Transcendence was also the subject of the 2006 documentary “The Believers,” by Emmy® Award-winning director Todd Holland.

The event will open at 5:00 p.m. for VIP Gold admission and 6:00 p.m. for VIP Silver admission.  Requested donations are $60.00 for VIP Gold, $50.00 for VIP Silver, and $30.00 for Bronze Admission. VIP Gold and Silver Access will include champagne greetings, pre-parties, red carpet photos, open wine/beer/vodka bar, and gourmet hors d’oeuvre buffets all night. Bronze Admission will include access to a wine and cheese pre-party beginning at 7:00 p.m., red carpet photos, hors d’oeuvre buffet from 8-10:00 p.m., and drink specials from 8:00 p.m. to midnight.

There is also a raffle for a trip for two to Las Vegas. The package is generously donated by Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino®, Las Vegas. It will include, round trip airfare for two, two nights and three days at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas®, dinner for two, airport pickup/dropoff, and a VIP welcome amenity. The majority of the proceeds from the raffle will support the travel and accommodation of Transcendence. The winner of the raffle will be announced at the event on March 7.

For more information, visit www.traversetheater.org. Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.traversetheater.tix.com or by calling 1-800-595-4849.

###

Throbbing through a darkly lit room, the live organ music of T. Desiree Hines texturizes the experience of watching a silent film and sets the mood for a more old-school Halloween. She’ll both improvise and draw from classical pieces during her accompaniment of Nosferatu, with reverberating notes enhancing the chill of one of the earliest films in the horror genre. “Before all the other Dracula movies,” says Hines, “there was Nosferatu.” Fri., Oct. 30, 7 and 11 p.m., $5-$10, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 800-595-4849, traversetheater.tix.com.

Hallman commissioned to produce new short work for Organ and Silent Film

Philadelphia-based composer to prepare a set of short pieces used to accompany

Silent Horror Classic. World premier set for October 30, 2009, during Nosferatu screening

Traverse Arts Project announced on Friday October 23, 2009 that Philadelphia-based composer Joseph Hallman will be preparing a set of short pieces for Organ and Silent Film.

The Petite Symphonie Macabre will be premiered on Friday October 30, 2009 at the 2^nd Annual Nosferatu Screening Benefit produced by Traverse Arts Project. T. Desiree Hines, Executive Director of Festivals and Resident Organist for TAP will perform the new work, along with other pieces of Organ music commonly associated with the instrument.

The work will consist of five fragments based on popular pieces of Organ music, and close with a fughetta based on themes found in the Fugue from the monumental Sonata on the 94^th Psalm by German Romantic Composer Julius Reubke. The work will be used during the screening of the 1922 Silent Horror Movie Classic Nosferatu, by F.W. Murnau. The piece will also leave room for Hines to extend each movement with her own improvisations. The film will be played without sound, and Hines will provide an accompaniment from the Organ.

“Joe and I met about 6 weeks ago while volunteering at an event held by GLBT community leaders. We quickly became colleagues, and are looking forward to more work together” mentioned Hines. When talking with Hallman, Hines had an idea to commission a set of pieces that would add a fresh perspective to the classic movie.

Hallman is no stranger to Philadelphia. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, he has received commissions from members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. In February 2008, his Divine Discontent, a concertino for English horn was premiered in February 2008, by Philadelphia Orchestra English Hornist Elizabeth Starr-Masoudna on the Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Series.

Entertainment :: Culture

“Festivus!” – a LGBT Festival – this weekend
Thursday May 28, 2009

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TAP: Traverse Arts Project presents the inaugural year of the Philadelphia Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Arts Festival with this year’s theme, Festivus!. The festival is a showcase of multidisciplinary works created or presented by GLBT artists and their straight allies. It will take place May 28-June 1 across the city and will feature 20+ LGBT performers.

According to Festival website, the GLBT Artists face challenges that often prohibit them from advancing their careers and appealing to a wider audience. This festival seeks to address these challenges by promoting social change and providing support for this beautiful and unique group.

The Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival is the brainchild of Desiree Hines. A classical organist and African-American male-to-female transsexual, Hines decided to create the festival after experiencing years of discrimination from religious and educational institutions, which ultimately left her homeless for nearly a year in Chicago. Now working as a freelance Organist, Hines wants this festival to engage the community in social change through the arts and offer career development opportunities for emerging GLBT artists.

“Traverse Arts Project is thrilled with the level of talent that will be presented at the first annual festival, says Hines, TAP Project Coordinator, GLBT Arts Festival. “All of the artists have extensive training from some of the finest schools training arts professionals, and each performer will address the issues affecting the GLBT community through artistic expression.

The Opening Night Celebration on Thursday, May 28 @ 8pm is a classical vocal recital featuring Elspeth Kincaid, Mezzo-Soprano with Laurent Phillipe, Pianist and Organist T. Desiree Hines. The program features music by Purcell, Bizet, Britten, Schubert and Aaron Copland. Mezzo-Soprano Elspeth Kincaid made her professional U.S. debut with the Cincinnati Opera as Aloès in L’Étoile in 2006. Opera News said, “Aloès was vocally and histrionically commanding.” She finished her residency with The Academy of Vocal Arts in May 2008, being one of the youngest mezzos to graduate from the prestigious institution. At First Unitarian Church. of Philadelphia, 2125 Chestnut St., Philadelphia PA, 19103.

Other events include:

Crazy: One Woman’s Search for Sanity
Gail Schwartz stars in the one-woman play Crazy, an autobiographically-based multimedia performance project dealing with issues of anxiety and depression. The project is designed to open conversations and shift paradigms about mental health and mental health challenges.

According to the play’s press release, the performance is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes stark but always engaging theatrical peek into the lived stories of artist Gail Marlene Schwartz. Audiences will encounter, among other things, a nightmare, a steam cleaner, a bike ride, a bunny, a very short tune and a very long list.

In addition, Schwartz is interested in helping to develop new ways of talking about, understanding and responding to experiences like anxiety and depression-ways that are more holistic, systemic and connected. As such, the stories in the play have been deliberately included because they raise key issues associated with mental health challenges including isolation, socioeconomic status, bullying and other forms of discrimination, nutrition, violence, labeling and medication.

Friday, May 29 8 PM; May 30, 2 PM; May 30, 7 PM; 119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA. 19147

Obscene
A US Premiere. From Canada comes Ian Mozdzen, an independent theatre artist known for pushing the envelope. From the sound of things he certainly does so with Obscene, a one-man play concerning “the conflicted inner world of a man driven to mutilate his manhood by the act of self-castration.” Obviously not for the faint of heart, the play features “Botched drag. Graphic imagery. Splosh. Frequent Full Frontal Nudity, and Profanity.” The 60-minute piece stars Mozden, and is directed by Claire Borody, with dramaturgy by Tom Stroud.

“Ian Mozdzen takes shock and awe to new levels … which begs the question: How far is too far…? In what could be described as pornographic performance art … he performs a mock self-castration and a drunk drag show. He drunkenly and disturbingly applies lipstick to his backside and then rolls around in smashed eggs … Mozdzen dedicates himself completely …” wrote the Winnipeg Sun. And Winnipeg’s Uptown Magazine said the play is “… brilliantly executed, as Mozdzen is an incredibly convincing performer … Obscene is a masochistic nightmare …. He wears bloody underwear, wields a knife, downs copious amounts of whiskey and spends much of his time naked. So what is all of this? Is it art? Or is it just shock?”

Friday, May 29, 10pm Saturday, May 30, 9pm and 5/30 11pm, and Sunday, May 31 at 7:30pm. 119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA. 19147

Three Mothers for Zachary
Three Mothers for Zachary by Shareef Hadid Jenkins, a graduate of Philadelphia’s Temple University’s Theater program who currently lives in the South Bronx, concerns Zachary, a gay teenager who lives with his drug addicted mother, is passed on to his conservatively religious aunt and ends up on the door step of a state appointed foster mother. The play is a series of monologues detailing the life of this gay boy and his relationships with these three very different mother figures. The cast features Nysheva-Starr and Cherie J. Patterson.

” ’Three Mothers of Zachary’ was inspired by a thirteen year old boy I met when I was fourteen,” wrote Jenkins. “Scott Rowan and I met at The Attic, an LGBT support group for youth in Philadelphia during the summer of 1993. He shined over the group with such excitement about where his life would take him. Scott, Like so many young confused gay teens had no support from his biological family and ended up in more than three foster homes in one year. In 1995, Scott killed himself. … I believe this story will always be appropriate, will always need a voice.”

Friday, May 29, 8pm; Saturday, May 30, 2pm, 119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA. 19147.

Starlight Supply
Starlight Supply is the story of two men – a young insurance executive on the brink of disaster and a free-spirited entrepreneur who sees the good in every situation he faces – whose worlds collide during a seemingly normal encounter. Over the play’s 30-minute running time the men will have see their lives inalterably changed. While not a gay-themed story, the play, according to its website, “has a message for people of all ages and backgrounds that says, “if you can just look past what you think things should be and simply accept those things for how they are, life can be much more enjoyable!” The play by local playwright Shawn O’Shea, was first seen in the 2007 Philly Fringe. It stars Ryan Walter as Melvin and Munir Kreidie as William, and marks O’Shea’s debut as a director.

Saturday, May 30 at 4pm and 7pm; Sunday, May 31 at 5pm. 119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA. 19147.

Theater Showcase
Three pieces comprise this program: first is “Welcome to the Freak Show,” an original work by Robert Woods that uses poetry and song that look at a number of serious subjects with ironic humor and thought. Second is “Pina’s Playhouse,” a solo piece that, according to its website is “a THEATRICAL attempt to FREE oneself from the societal defined requirements of sex and gender. The piece plays with the relationship between masculine and feminine: SLICES of “GENDER as PERFORMATIVE” – as well as character which identifies with: Pulsing, Pounding, GIRL Body/BOY Body. REESTABLISHING the MEANING of Gender.” The third piece is “Pussies Pens & Politics” by Denise Frohman. The piece is “a verbal explosion and rallying cry exploring the context of love in life and politics for today’s gay community, while leaving you laughing out loud and empowered-all at the same time.” This “no holds barred” world presents the work of 2008 Philadelphia Grand Slam Winner, Ms. Wise and Scheme Magazine’s 2009 “Voice of The Year” Ms. Misconception-with both fiery verbal exchanges and individual pieces. Both artists, as proud lesbian spoken word performers, have joined forces to use their voices to raise awareness about social injustices in the gay community and beyond, while inspiring the world one word at a time. From raunchy poems about temptation to the ever more relevant Prop 8 legislation –”Pussies, Pens and Politics” is a verbal explosion and rallying cry exploring the context of love in life and politics for today’s gay community, while leaving you laughing out loud and empowered-all at the same time.

The Women by Claire Booth Luce : A Reading of the Classic Play
There will be a reading of Claire Booth Luce’s classic comedy “The Women.” Set in Depression era Manhattan, Luce’s scabrous comedy follows the gossipy going-ons of a group of Park Avenue women and those who service them. What makes it unique is that it is cast entirely by women. It is well-known largely through its 1939 film version (which also retained its all-female concept.)

The Philadelphia reading will take place on Friday, May 29, 2009 at 8:30 pm at the Crown Plaza Hotel, 1800 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA. Phone: (800) 595-4849.

Dance Showcase
Dance Showcase will feature two programs. The first called “Wellspring” created and performed by the Philly Contact Collective. In this structured improvisational performance the Philly Contact Collective uses Contact Improvisation dance to play with the concept and practice of support. The second called “Sonso and Pierrot Meet” asks the question, What is it exactly that happens when two lovers meet for the first time? Like any other first encounter, they typically discuss trivial topics. But the knots in the stomach, palpitating hearts and sweat beads attest that this first encounter is anything but trivial. Particularly when the lovers happen to be Sonso, a Tanzanian primatologist, and Pierrot — a Franco-American clown. The program takes place on Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 1:00 pm at the119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA.

A second dance event is of little value: map dance collective in which three individual artists’ thoughts, creative approaches and aesthetic designs will be assembled in an evening-length performance that questions assumptions of value(s). The evening will include the emergence of each artist’s premier work woven together with humorous, mundane, and bizarre moments. map dance collective is specific in its process and performance in that they work from a place of multiple perspectives, embracing individualism within community. Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 8:30 pm at the119 Arts Center, 119 South Street, Philadelphia PA

Musical events

Festivus: The 2009 Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival

The Traverse Arts Project is bringing a new festival to the city that exclusively highlights the work of emerging GLBT artists. Musical presentations, dance theater and dramatic arts performances were selected from hundreds of applications from all over the country and Canada. Canadian performer Ian Mozden is in town to perform his controversial show Obscene, in which he plays a professor struggling with gender identity issues. Appearing fully naked throughout the entire production, Mozden simulates self-castration. The works are not all GLBT-themed, but the artists are GLBT individuals who have come together to engage the community in social change through artistic expression. “We’re hoping that we have lots of straight allies in the audience,” says founder and organizer T. Desiree Hines. “It’s critical that society support emerging and local arts professional, to insure the future of the arts and culture in Philadelphia and beyond.” Anastasia Kotsosavas

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Photos by Neal Santos

She knew that Mississippi would be the death of her.

Which is why, on the morning of August 28, 2001, T. Desiree Hines was leaving. She packed a suitcase full of skirts and dresses, carefully applied her makeup and prepared to take a taxi to Jackson-Evers International Airport, where she’d catch a 6:45 p.m. flight to Washington state by way of Memphis. She’d spent the last 21 years living, uncomfortably, in a male body. She was ready to be a full-time woman.

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Leaving the stranglehold of the South may have been the single most significant moment of Desiree’s life, but it was only the second most significant moment of that particular morning.

“I woke up that day and my mother was having the worst nervous breakdown that she had ever had,” Desiree recalls as if that sweltering summer morning eight years ago were yesterday. It happened to be within days of the ninth anniversary of her sister Phyllis’ death. Phyllis died of aplastic anemia in 1992, and Desiree’s mother — a survivor of childhood and spousal abuse who’d struggled throughout her life with mental illness — had convinced herself that a second child was dying that morning, too. “Mama had started to, in her mind, construct that I was eternally gone, rather than just leaving home and spreading my wings. She was so sick, I had to lie on top of her to hold her down.”

In a brief moment of clarity, her mother said she understood why Desiree had to go. There were no jobs for classical organists in Jackson and no place for a transsexual woman in the Bible Belt. As the ambulance whisked her mother away, Desiree grabbed her bags and ran straight in the direction of her new life, never looking back — and never returning to Mississippi.

In a way, Mama was right about her daughter: Part of Desiree did die that day. But a much bigger part was only being born.

That frantic Mississippi morning feels like a lifetime ago.

Today Desiree is comfortable in her own skin. A Gemini on the verge of 30, she lives in University City and keeps herself more than busy. She works a handful of part-time jobs — she’s a church organist, caterer, site manager for Wilma Theater’s subscription campaign — and surrounds herself with an ever-growing network of friends who can’t help but gravitate toward her gregarious, larger-than-life personality.

Best of the Fest features highlights of the GLBT Arts Festival.

Desiree identifies as a woman who happens to be transsexual, still waiting until the time is right and money is there — according to a University of Michigan study, anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 in the U.S. — to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. But while it may take years for Desiree to raise the funds for a vaginoplasty, not much else keeps this woman — and from her done-up hair to her sensible heels, she is all woman — waiting.

Desiree’s latest venture, this weekend’s little-engine-that-could 2009 Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival, is certainly her greatest undertaking, born out of a desire to give an underrepresented, misunderstood community the chance to shine.

“To have a festival with arts professionals who openly identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans, and who could present to us what they feel is missing in the arts sector as a GLBT artist, is amazing,” Desiree says of the three-day, 20-plus-performance festival presented by Philadelphia-based nonprofit Traverse Arts Project. She admits that, although she’s had plenty of help, orchestrating the behemoth event has been far from a cakewalk. “It takes persistence before people see that you’re serious about something in Philly.”

That’s especially true for members of the trans community in this city, where the word “transsexual” tends to conjure images of drag queens, transvestites, night walkers, freaks. Many trans women — and men — are simply living their lives and hoping to be taken seriously, no matter how hard they have to fight.

And Desiree knows fighting.

Sitting at her desk last week surrounded by three open bags of dollar-store popcorn, Desiree is simultaneously e-mailing a co-worker, texting her best friend and telling me about the time when, as a 3-year-old, she threw a hissy fit in a drugstore over a doll she simply had to have.

“I cried and screamed in the Super D until my mother bought me that doll,” Desiree says between hurried bites. “That’s the first time I remember feeling like something wasn’t quite right.”

Desiree spent her childhood praising the Lord in a liberal Episcopal church, respecting her elders — and feeling like a girl in a boy’s body. And although her mother’s mental illness played a huge role in her life — Desiree worked two jobs as a teenager to help pay the bills, since her abusive father was absent and her mother often struggled even to make dinner for the family — her unconditional support for her daughter is what Desiree remembers. “On Saturday afternoons, I wouldn’t watch sports — I would watch cooking shows. I would watch the orchestra. When Mama saw that I liked those things, she didn’t threaten me or punish me. She cultivated them. She got me a violin. She got me an Easy-Bake Oven.”

Unlike children with a wild hare to play a sport or ride a horse, Desiree’s interests never faded. By the time she was 15, she’d traded in that Easy-Bake Oven for a working stove top, and went from one of the most common instruments to the most unusual.

“I discovered the pipe organ when I was 15, watching a TV program of a world-renowned organist, Diane Bish. I was transfixed.” She took on odd jobs to pay for lessons, and — despite the doubly dreadful throes of transsexual adolescence — she always stuck with the instrument. Her fingers scaling stacked keyboards, feet steady on the pedal board, Desiree knew it was her calling to play the pipes.

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On that emotional day back in 2001, two weeks before 9/11, Desiree arrived at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in Tacoma, Wash. Despite having just seen her mother carted off to a mental institution, Desiree recalls an overwhelming sense of excitement. She could continue embracing her spirituality while expanding her musicianship. More importantly, she thought she could finally be who she always felt she was. For a religious school, PLU’s student body and faculty were noted for their progressive stance on GLBT issues, which put Desiree — testing out her new life as a full-time woman — at ease.

Only it wasn’t so simple. Because she hadn’t undergone sex-reassignment surgery and was technically still male, she wasn’t allowed to live in a female dorm. “‘We’ll have to house you on the male wing, and you’ll have to use the male facilities,’” Desiree remembers being told by the vice president of student life. Dumbstruck by the news and unable at the time to put up a fight — “I didn’t like to stand up to authority; it’s not the way I was raised” — Desiree opted instead for studio-apartment housing, which was far more expensive. “Things were really hard that first semester. I had no money, and the little money I did have with financial aid was going toward housing. I had to borrow money from the school just to buy groceries.”

But the final straw didn’t come until the following winter, when she was told — after successfully auditioning — that she would not be allowed to participate in the women’s choir at PLU, despite it being a requirement for graduation. The women’s restrooms in the music building were off-limits, too.

Something snapped in Desiree, and she spiraled into a depression that deterred her from practicing and, eventually, passing her performance exams. “They messed with my emotional toolbox,” she says. “It’s as though they had gone into my toolbox, taken my tools and brought them back to me dirty and bent up.”

Desiree picked up and left again — but not back to Mississippi. “It would have caused purging,” she says, describing the phenomenon in which trans people, midway through transitioning, revert to their birth sex when faced with their old, familiar routines. “It’s not healthy at all, and I knew there was nothing at home for me.” Fearful of returning to the closet, Desiree applied to the Chicago College of Performing Arts (CCPA), was accepted, and headed east.

“You hear people talk about the South Side of Chicago, and how rough it is,” says Desiree, remembering Harmony Village, the LGBT-friendly homeless shelter where she would spend the next eight months of her life. “But being a very spiritual and religious person, I think God gave me this experience to make me a stronger person and to humble me.”

When Desiree arrived in Chicago in 2002, she owed PLU $700 before she could get her transcripts sent to CCPA. (She points out, in an uncharacteristically bitter tone, that if it weren’t for the administrator who’d banned her from the women’s dorms, she wouldn’t have racked up a debt to PLU, and would have been able to start classes at CCPA. As it happened, she was never able to attend.)

Not one to let a bad situation stop her, Desiree embraced the unique shelter’s dorm-style housing (she was placed with another trans woman), counseling, medical care and subsidized hormone therapy. She got back on her feet, sent out resumes to churches across the country and began to rebuild the spirit that had been crushed at PLU. “It was a period of my life that I needed. I had so much drive and motivation to elevate myself. Who would have thought that being homeless in Chicago would make someone grow so much?”

Desiree developed her church-organist chops in Chicago, utilizing public libraries’ practice rooms, auditioning, touring and meeting folks who praised her for her talent, rather than judging her for her birth sex. “I came to terms with myself that I am a real musician, and I am capable of this.”

There’s a world of difference between that moment in the Super D, when nothing felt right, and today. Desiree’s been in Philadelphia for three years after a brief stint in New York studying organ at Mannes College conservatory, and for once she isn’t itching to city-hop. “Everything I’ve ever wanted is actually starting to happen,” Desiree says triumphantly as she sifts through pledge letters and e-mails from GLBT Arts Festival sponsors. She’s just secured a $3,000 gift from Tavern on Camac, which will cover getting the lighting hung and floors laid down at 119 Arts Center, the South Street spot where most of this weekend’s performances will be held.

She hasn’t done it all alone. Traverse Arts Project artistic director Mark Dahl, whom she met while working at the Kimmel Center three years ago, is her right-hand man for the project, providing the fundraising yin to Desiree’s marketing yang. Dahl, formerly of Philly’s Uncut Productions, is also a good friend. In between fits of laughter and plates of Southern-style ribs, the duo’s been busy these past few months, gaining sponsorship from Rain Vodka, Crowne Plaza Center City and QUEERtimes, hosting fundraisers and networking like crazy. “It’s a lot of hard work, and a lot of me soapboxing,” Desiree says. “I bet everyone sees me coming and goes, ‘Oh, God, here comes that damn Desiree Hines, talking about that arts festival again.’”

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In its infant year, the GLBT Arts Festival — and its Festivus! theme (see “Best of the Fest” for highlights) — isn’t likely one you’ve heard of. Yet. “Even if we don’t have huge audiences, we’ve got a damn good lineup,” Desiree says of the myriad performances planned for this weekend, including opera, dance, storytelling, live music — and really, really experimental theater.

Billed as “part chaotic battlefield, part jerk-off fantasy,” Canadian playwright Ian Mozden’s Obscene in particular is meant to raise eyebrows. The story of a man driven to self-castration, Obscene comes with its own warning labels: “Botched drag, graphic imagery, splosh, frequent full-frontal nudity, profanity.” The subject matter may be cringe-worthy, but it’s also painfully relevant to members of the trans community who feel they were born with the wrong body parts. “It’s a very powerful show,” says Desiree. “It’s one of those shows that will bring up in people a lot of what they don’t like about themselves when it comes to transphobia.”

Fully aware of the stigma that surrounds the trans community, Desiree hopes her festival sheds some light on a group of people who are grossly misrepresented in this city. She also hopes to reach the huge percentage of trans people who fall into certain traps.

“I think a big part of escorting among the trans community is fear. Fear of loss, of support structure, of losing their jobs, of being picked on. A lot of times people find that to be a very easy way to have a lucrative living, but there are a lot of men out there — many of whom are latent homosexuals — who objectify transsexual women. I just wish they would have a sense of hope and pride in themselves and consider a better route out.”

Desiree hopes her story — and her festival, and her faith — reaches those who struggle with self-acceptance and self-love.

“I want them to know that if they need help finding their way, I’ll help them. It’s easy to sell yourself for $1,000, but it’s degrading. You can have your life just like anyone else.”

She’s on board with the idea of mentoring individuals who feel lost or afraid. But her vision is much bigger than that. “Even though there’s separation of church and state, I think there should be protection for those of us who work in religious orders. … While he’s still living and spry and kicking, I’m gonna go up to New Hampshire and have a meeting with [openly gay Episcopal] Bishop Gene Robinson and say, let’s do this.”

There’s a Hines family reunion this August in Colorado Springs, and Desiree is planning to attend. Though her mother has always been supportive and the two have spoken often on the phone, it’s been eight years since they’ve laid eyes on each other. It may as well have been a lifetime. Surprisingly, Desiree says she’s not nervous to introduce herself to her family for the first time as T. Desiree Hines.

“The name Desiree was a tribute to my sister, Phyllis, whose middle name started with a D,” she says. “And the T stands for Toni, a derivative of my birth name.” It’s the closest Desiree ever comes to revealing the name she answered to as a child. Though she’s endeavored to leave her past behind, she knowingly carries a bit of it around with her. Mississippi may have very nearly been the death of her. But it’s also part of who she is. The reunion, much like her festival this weekend, will be like a coming-out party. And her transformation will be complete.

(carolyn.huckabay@citypaper.net)

Tags: T. Desiree Hines, transsexual, transgender, GLBT Arts Festival, GLBT