Events - Event View

The panel, moderated by Jason Tranchida & Matthew Lawrence, will feature talks from Elmo Terry-Morgan on “The Black Lavender Experience (1998-present)”, Janaya Kizzie on “Kandy’s of Course Beauty Salon (1968-2017)”, and Angela DiVeglia on “Kings and Queens Bar in Woonsocket (1977-2002)” and the Kim Deacon Collection of photographs at the Providence Public Library. The program will also feature a brief overview of the LGBTQ+ timeline made by Lawrence, as well as a screening of archival footage from the first Rhode Island Pride Parade in 1976. Guests may arrive before the program for a 5:30pm reception.

• Jason Tranchida (he/him) & Matthew Lawrence (he/they) are a collaborative duo living in Providence, Rhode Island. Matthew and Jason have worked on multiple art and curatorial projects, including Headmaster, a project-based art magazine and the multi-channel video installation Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza, a musical-documentary about the Newport Navy Scandal of 1919.
• Elmo Terry-Morgan (he/him) is Associate Professor Emeritus in Africana Studies and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, and Artistic Director Emeritus of Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University. Professor Elmo Terry-Morgan’s areas of specialization are African-American Theatre, African-American Folk Traditions and Cultural Expressions, Black LGBTQ+ Theatre, and Research-to-Performance Method [RPM] Playwriting. ETM and his students developed their sui generes course in 1998, Black Lavender: The study of plays with Black LGBTQ+ content and The Black Lavender Experience [BLX] 2009, a presentation of LGBTQ+ plays, films, interviews and panels.
• Janaya Kizzie (they/she) is an author, archivist, and historian living in the Providence area. Kizzie processed the AS220 Collection, documenting the history of arts and place-making, at the Providence Public Library in 2016, and was named the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities Rhode Island Public Humanities Scholar in 2020. They have been a processing archivist at Brown University since 2022. In 2024 Kizzie was commissioned to create three biographies on LGBTQ+ people in Rhode Island for Rhode Tour, an online app documenting the history and culture of the state.
• Angela DiVeglia (she/her) is an artist, urban gardener, writer, curator, and librarian. Her work centers around visual and immersive research, social movement documentation, public history, post-industrial landscapes, radical cartography, and the transformative power of community archives. She helped create the Rhode Island LGBTQ+ Community Archive at Providence Public Library and serves on the Board of Dirt Palace Public Projects, a feminist arts organization that offers numerous residency and exhibition programs in Providence.