“Tag, you’re it!” For the five movers and shakers on this list, that’s more than a phrase breathlessly called out on the playground. It’s a call to action and a challenge to make service to others seem like the obvious choice. But it’s also an exclamation to, and an embracing of, the LGBT community. Because when it comes to the issues important to us, this diverse group of performers, writers, educators, and activists is not playing games. From living with HIV/AIDS to school bullying, they are taking on some of the the grittiest issues of our times. From creating safe spaces, to beautifying public spaces, they’re changing the way the larger community sees us, and the way we see ourselves. They’re here, they’re queer, and they are making a big difference, in the Pittsburgh area, and beyond.
Jared Pascoe
Writer/Do-Gooder
Jared Pascoe and friends had a dream for Pittsburgh: gay and trans men and women ,spilling out of the bars and clubs and into the streets … where they would proceed to pick up trash and plant trees. And so the Pittsburgh chapter of Gay for Good was born. Pascoe’s worked on both coasts with models and Hollywood types, but the Point Park University graduate is casting himself in a new role, now. For him, nonprofits are where it’s at. And Gay for Good: Pittsburgh’s first year was encouraging. More than 3,000 volunteer hours were logged at monthly community service projects, benefiting groups such as Tree Pittsburgh and the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Pascoe once got this advice from a Los Angeles casting director: “Make sure you listen to what they need.” He listened, and Pascoe says Gay for Good fills a void in the LGBT community. It provides young people, especially, a way to socialize outside of the bar scene, and an opportunity to be seen in a new way by the community. And it works. “I get there, we’re
doing it, and everytime I leave, I get really excited that it happened,” Pascoe beams. It’s not the soap opera writing he dreamed of as a kid (though he is writing a play), but it beats having shoes thrown in his direction like at his first job in New York. It’s just the kind of work he’s been looking for.
JJ Cox
Drag King/Social Transformer
If drag queens are fierce, what are drag kings? If you’re talking about JJ Cox — original, inventive, and intense fit the bill. The hardworking cofounder of the genderqueer performance group Hot Metal Hardware holds down a full time gig as a web developer while pursuing pageant titles (he’s held four) and producing monthly shows, such as the now legendary holiday Spanksgiving show at Cattivo. Cox started to wonder about drag before he’d even seen a show. Once he witnessed performer Dante DiFranco in action, there was no going back. But there has been giving back — lots of it. Cox and fellow artists have made a point to donate proceeds from shows to organizations like Pittsburgh Action Against Rape(PAAR), Habitat for Humanity, and the Wounded Warriors Project. That’s more than generous considering drag king shows don’t bank as much cash as more culturally celebrated drag queens. But that may be changing as the artform evolves, says Cox. He’s doing his part to push the genre forward — ever seen drag mime? — and turning his success into empowerment for future drag kings, or masculine females looking for role models. “It’s easier to accept who you are if there are visible people, who you can relate to,” he says.
Ashlie Prioleau
Grad Student/Community Connector
She does math problems for fun, and admits to being just a little bit nerdy. But former chemistry undergrad Ashlie Prioleau had a different kind of experiment in mind: find out what the LGBT campus community needs. As the LGBT Resources Intern at Carnegie Mellon University, the answer sent off sparks for her personally and professionally. She set up a mentoring program. With the help of advisor Meg Evans, Prioleau’s already signed up sixteen mentors, and twelve mentees. The idea is similar to the “It Gets Better” Project — only up close and personal. And continual. Prioleau says she wishes she’d had more LGBT people of color to look up to, and
hopes a mix of community members and partners will give participating students the resources they need. She gets credit for her internship as part of a Masters in Higher Education degree she’s studying for at the University of Pittsburgh, but Prioleau says she’d do it anyway. “It’s
like having a baby. You need to deliver it, raise it, make it healthy, make sure it’s being raised well. Makes you happy, makes other people happy. You never know what impact it could have until you see it in people’s lives — watching it grow,” she says. Though at 23, the lifelong Pittsburgher doesn’t know where life will take her, she’d like to keep working to make the LGBT community feel welcomed and prepared for the college experience.
Adam Pribila
Actor/Advocate
It shouldn’t be surprising that actors wear many hats. Costumes are their stock and trade. Adam Pribila wears many of his hats offstage, however. In fact, the actor, director, writer, PR pro and general manager at the Industry Public House in Lawrenceville is something of a Renaissance
man. He’s taken that spirit to his volunteer work at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education
Network(GLSEN). Pribila is the Volunteer Coordinator, and chair of the People- to -People
Committee at GLSEN Pittsburgh. Which is really a misnomer. The organization serves 11 counties.
Pribila’s doubled the volunteer base, aimed at keeping schools safe for kids regardless of their
gender identity or sexual orientation. And he has his hand in GLSEN’s marketing and outreach —
literally. Pribila created the GLSEN Oath, an ad and educational campaign where hands are painted and photographed. Participants are then asked how they will help to stop the cycle of bullying. It’s one of the things he’s most proud of, and it stems directly from the luck he feels for not being bullied himself as a teenager who was out in high school. He’s turning that luck into more opportunities for LGBT youth and allies to volunteer and come together, like at this year’s Pittsburgh Youth Pride Prom. And the response has been overwhelming. “It’s incredibly satisfying to see not only the LGBT community rally behind us, but also the community at large.
Tom Viola
Executive Director/Hometown Boy Makes Great
“At first, it sprang from a great emotional response to what was going on around us. People were dying all around us,” remembers Tom Viola, of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that was ravaging the New York theater scene in the 1980s. Viola’s the executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and has been at the helm of the organization for more than 20 years. He even received a special Tony Award for his work. He’s also a native of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and the two facets of his life are connected in meaningful ways. Since 1988, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised more than $195 million for its own programs and hundreds of grantee groups across the US, including Shepherd Wellness Community and the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. Viola says, in the early days, a modest bake sale outside of the musical Cats on Broadway
would generate funds for the stunning lack of basic health services available to those living with HIV/AIDS. Now, the organization has a bigger reach from directly asking audiences for funds — even here in Pittsburgh, at the Benedum Center — to special performances and produced events, like Broadway Barks and the Easter Bonnet Competition. And the money goes farther, too. It supports food banks and housing services that speak to the complexities of living with HIV/AIDS over a longer period of time. Viola visits family in the Pittsburgh area every year, and nonprofits who benefit from Broadway Cares. “To see these places, again, and to know that from my desk at 46th and 7th [in New York City], I can have an effect on them … I like that,” he says. And he never imagined, as a kid in Bethel Park, that this area would be so welcoming to him as a grown up gay man, living with HIV.
