@RyanNewYork
He sits on the Broad of Directors of The Ali Forney Center, where he is the founding producer of their annual Broadway Beauty Pageant fundraiser. He's also on the Board of Directors of The Deconstructive Theatre Project and the Board of Advisers of the startup TV Dinner.
He's also a director/producer, who lives in Brooklyn, NY and created the musical White Noise. Ryan writes about politics for The Huffington Post & The Hill. He has been a guest editor for Queerty and is the host of the podcast Gay History: Uncut.
Here Ryan blogs about politics, film, TV, history, religion, science, books, theater, digital media, LGBT issues, Bushwick & Williamsburg, New York City, and anything else he's interested in at the moment. Oh, and he'll probably talk a lot about himself.
This is a personal blog. Any opinions expressed here and on my Twitter represent my own and not those of my employer or clients.
Some great new pictures of the contestants in this year’s Broadway Beauty Pageant. It’s on MONDAY in New York City - tickets available here.
Contestants are out for this year’s The Annual Broadway Beauty Pageant!
Get your tickets at: http://bit.ly/BBP2013Tixs
It’s a fantastic group. “This year’s competitors will include Callan Bergmann (Silence! The Musical), Julius C. Carter (Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark), Yurel Echezarreta (Matilda), Matthew Goodrich (The Nance), Orion Griffiths (Pippin) and Paul HeeSang Miller (Mamma Mia!).”
(Photo from previous pageant)
As you may know, I’ve been producing The Broadway Beauty Pageant for seven years! Our 2013 competition is coming up on Monday, May 20th and we’ve just announced a trio of fantastic judges; Billy Porter, Andrea Martin and Michael Urie. The always fabulous Tovah Feldshuh is returning to host for a 6th time.
If you’ve never been before, this video is a great introduction to the fun.
Hope you can come out and support The Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive organization addressing the very-real issue of homeless LGBT Youth.
Tickets for The Broadway Beauty Pageant are available at www.nyuskirball.org/calendar/broadwaybeautypageant, and range in price from $25 –$150. All VIP tickets include a pre and post-show VIP cocktail reception, gift bag, and premier seating.
I’ll see you there!
The Ali Forney Center is the largest nationwide organization dedicated to LGBTQ homeless youth.
There are currently 39 items on their Amazon wish list, most being undergarments like tank tops, plain tees, undies and chest binders for the youth they shelter. A majority of the items are less than $20 and the most expensive item is only $35.
Let’s try to help them by Tumblr bombing the shit out the Ali Forney Center with direct donations and purchasing everything on their wish list!
40% of homeless youth in America are LGBTQ, so if you support the queer struggle, reblog this, purchase something from their wish list and get involved!
Thanks for your support Tumblr!
Support The Ali Forney Center!
I’m really looking forward to the Broadway Beauty Pageant this year. Can’t believe it’s been seven years since Jeffery Self & I put up the first production. I’ve directed the last six years, but am passing the torch over to longtime friend Seth Sikes. He’s doing a great job rebooting the show and I’m staying on as a producer.
Get your tickets today and I’ll see you on May 20th.
Photo below from 2008 Broadway Beauty Pageant tech with Andy Lott (left) , me, Seth Sikes, & Jeffery Self.
Picture below of me and Seth in London in the fall of 2008.
The Broadway Beauty Pageant, now in its seventh year, is an annual extravaganza benefiting the Ali Forney Center, NYC’s primary housing resource for homeless LGBTQ youth. Join us on May 20th!
The Broadway Beauty Pageant is a beauty contest of sorts, in which male performers from current Broadway shows compete for the coveted title. Celebrity judges and hosts help to guide contestants through the impressive talent portion, interviews, and the swimsuit competition. In the end, the audience casts ballots to determine who will walk away with the crown.
Photos from past Broadway Beauty Pageants.
The Ali Forney Center, an organization that I’m proud to serve on the board of, has started releasing their second ‘Homeless for the Holidays’ series that tells the stories of LGBTQ youth living on the streets of New York City, through images and audio. It’s produced by Carl Siciliano, the center’s executive director, who wrote the below essay on the project.
You can see all the videos as there released here.
Homeless for the Holidays: Witnessing the lives of NYC’s Homeless LGBT Youth
by Carl Siciliano
This is among the most terrible expressions of homophobia in our time.
As LGBT youth come out at younger ages, thousands are driven from their homes by rejecting families, and forced to endure homelessness and destitution.
In New York City, the statistics are horrifying. LGBT youth make up 40% of the homeless youth population, comprising 1,600 of NYC’s 3,800 homeless youth. And NYC’s response is even more horrifying; only 250 youth shelter beds are provided by the city, forcing many youths to sleep in subways, park benches, abandoned buildings and rooftops.
But statistics don’t adequately express the horror of what these youths endure. They don’t express the suffering these kids go through; the psychological torment of being rejected, feeling unloved, alone and terrified, or the physical torment of the cold, exposure to the elements, hunger and chronic sleep deprivation.
I want to wake our city up to this atrocity that goes on in our midst, of these thousands of kids left out alone on the streets without shelter beds. So I have been spending time with these youths, photographing them in the spaces where they try to make it through the nights, listening and recording them tell of what they suffer. Allowing them to show us and tell us what they go through.
The Ali Forney Center has joined a number of other LGBT advocates and providers in creating The Campaign for Youth Shelter, which calls on the City to commit to a plan to add 100 youth shelter beds per year until such time as there are no longer waiting lists at the youth shelters. Alas, our Mayor refuses to discuss this; instead he tries every year to cut the few shelter beds. In 2012 he proposed reducing the number of youth shelter beds by 60%, forcing the New York City Council to fight to restore the few beds available.
In response we have organized rallies, initiated letter-writing and email campaigns, gotten the LGBT political clubs to sign on to statements in support of our plan. So far to no avail.
For now, with this project, all I am asking is for as many people as possible to open ourselves to these kids’ lives, and listen to them. Please try to empathize with what it is like to be young, abandoned, and alone on the streets of our city. What they have to say is painful and disturbing to hear. But they need us to listen. The only call to action I am asking for in response is to share their stories as much as you possibly can.
We need to ask ourselves why, in this great city where so much wealth and power and talent is concentrated, why must so many of our abandoned youths be forced to endure homelessness without adequate shelter beds? Only when enough of us are ashamed and outraged to have our youths be so terribly mistreated and neglected will there be the political will to provide the resources to shelter them.
So please share their stories, and try to find a place for these kids in your thoughts and in your hearts.
The Ali Forney Center, the largest and most comprehensive LGBT homeless youth organization in the country, suffered a major loss due to Hurricane Sandy. Their drop-in center, which is a lifeline to kids who live on the streets, was destroyed.
Below is a letter from their executive director, Carl Siciliano, detailing the situation and how you can help. (Hint: they really need your money.)
This organization is near and dear to my heart, I’m on the Board of Directors and have produced The Broadway Beauty Pageant for them for many years. Please give what you can to this very important cause.
Dear Friends,
Yesterday we were finally able to inspect our drop-in center in Chelsea, half a block from the Hudson River. Our worst fears were realized; everything was destroyed and the space is uninhabitable. The water level went four feet high, destroying our phones, computers, refrigerator, food and supplies.
This is a terrible tragedy for the homeless LGBT youth we serve there. This space was dedicated to our most vulnerable kids, the thousands stranded on the streets without shelter, and was a place where they received food, showers, clothing, medical care, HIV testing and treatment, and mental health and substance abuse services. Basically a lifeline for LGBT kids whose lives are in danger.
We are currently scrambling for a plan to provide care to these desperate kids while we prepare to ultimately move into a larger space that will better meet our needs. The NYC LGBT Center has very kindly and generously offered to let us temporarily use some of their space, and we hope to determine the viability of that on Monday.
We have been deluged with kind offers from people who wish to volunteer and donate goods. Unfortunately, we will have to provide our services in the time being in much smaller spaces that won’t accommodate volunteers or allow for much storage space. The best way people can reach out to help in this very challenging time is by making monetary donations. Please go to our website at www.aliforneycenter.org/hurricanesandy
It is heartbreaking to see this space come to such a sad end. For the past seven years it has been a place of refuge to thousands of kids reeling from being thrown away by their parents for being LGBT. For many of these kids coming to our drop-in center provided their first encounter with a loving and affirming LGBT community. I thank all of you for your care and support in a most difficult time.
- Carl Siciliano
Hope lots of you join us next Thursday, July 19th for Ali Forney Center’s annual Oasis party. It’s gonna be a great time for a great cause - supporting homeless LGBT youth.
Founder of Ali Forney Center, Carl Siciliano, Honored by White House
This morning, the White House announced that Carl Siciliano, executive director and founder of New York City’s Ali Forney Center, has been selected as a Champion of Change in the Fight Against Youth Homelessness. Siciliano founded the Ali Forney Center (AFC) in June of 2002 in response to the lack of safe shelter for LGBT youth in New York City. The Center is committed to providing young LGBT people with safe, dignified, and nurturing environments. Siciliano and his team at the Center are dedicated to promoting awareness of the plight of homeless LGBT youth in the United States with the goal of generating responses on local and national levels from government funders, foundations, and the LGBT community. Carl Siciliano promptly responded to the honor:
Great man.
One of my heroes. Donate to The Ali Forney Center today.
March 19th marks the sixth year that I’ve directed and produced The Annual Broadway Beauty Pageant, an event that raises money for New York’s Ali Forney Center to support homeless LGBT youth.
It’s always a terrifically fun event and you can buy tickets for just $40 until February 14th. Get your tickets today and please reblog to support our efforts.
