Studio Theatre’s Artistic Producing Fellow, Ella Talerico, interviewed Wes Morrison and Olivia O’Neal, members of Whitman Walker Health’s Silver Circle who lived in the DMV area during the 1960s-1980s just like the character Carl in Paula Vogel’s The Mother Play.
ELLA: I’d love to hear any stories you have on growing up in the DMV area as young gay people.
OLIVIA: Well, Wes has a whole lot of them.
WES: (laughing) How much time do we have? I was raised in Durham, North Carolina by my aunt and grandmother. My grandmother taught me how to sew and cook because I was sickly and indoors a lot. I came to D.C. in 1959 to live with my mother, who expected a football player, not a boy who could cook and wanted to learn French. We had a hard time—she didn’t understand me.
I knew I was gay around six years old. I didn’t know the word for it, but I knew what I felt. Later, my best friend was a boy from church named Dickie. He played the organ beautifully. Once, at Kit’s Music Store downtown, he sat down and played, and people came in off the street just to listen. Not long after, he jumped off the 14th Street Bridge. His parents blamed me. That was my first tragedy.
OLIVIA: Oh my goodness.
WES: Yeah. That’s something you don’t forget.
OLIVIA: Well, I’ll skip to my twenties. When I moved to D.C. in the ’70s for school, that’s when my life as a gay woman really began. You couldn’t be out in the South—it was dangerous. But in D.C., I found freedom. There were so many of us! I hung out every weekend—Tracks, Clubhouse—you name it. We had a ball. It was the first time I could be myself without fear.
WES: I remember the AIDS Quilt coming to D.C. in 1985, spread across the National Mall. The silence was deafening. You could feel the loss in the air. We lost at least two generations—artists, dancers, stylists, theatre people. I kept an obits book. Between 1990 and 2000, I lost 200 friends. I was called “Mother” because I looked after the street kids. Every one of them—gone. Only three people I know today have known me more than fifty years.
OLIVIA: I lost a lot, too. Four good friends in one week. It tore me up. Nobody understands that kind of grief unless they lived it. I’m just glad it’s not a death sentence now. I have faith there’ll be a cure.
ELLA: What was D.C.’s LGBTQ+ culture like back then? Where were your safe spaces?
WES: As folks used to say, if you’re gay and old, D.C. is the place to be. It was open and vibrant. We had incredible clubs—The Georgetown Grill, Mr. Henry’s, Mr. Smith’s, the Sundown, The Court Jester. Good Guys. So many good times.
OLIVIA: What was that lesbian club on Capitol Hill? All women, nothing but women—what was it called?
WES: Phase One.
OLIVIA: That’s it! My first time in a space like that—just women dancing, hugging, kissing. My eyes were like, yo! (laughing) It was joy, pure joy. I went to Bachelor’s Mill, the Clubhouse, Tracks. They were safe. You could breathe, laugh, dance. And there were always house parties. I had a lot of fun with certain ladies. (smiling) Sometimes I came home with company. I was living my best life.
WES: I didn’t come out til college. At McKinley High, I got harassed, even stuffed into a garbage can. My mother wanted to send me to military school, so I went—and loved it. When I got to American University, I met a gay friend who took me to my first bar, The Lost and Found. I froze seeing men dancing together. He grabbed my coat lapels and pulled me in. I thought, oh my God.
Then I discovered the Georgetown Grill—internationally famous. When Fleet Week came, sailors from around the world filled the place. You didn’t need much language to know what everyone wanted. (laughs) We did a lot for international relations!
Mr. Henry’s was another favorite. That’s where I met Dave Kopay, the first openly gay football player. He was harassed so badly a prince took him to Arabia to protect him. D.C. had its share of pain, but it was alive with community.
ELLA: How has gay life in D.C. changed over time?
OLIVIA: It feels like we’re going backward—fast. Everything we fought for—our rights, our history—they’re trying to erase it. Sometimes I feel like a runaway slave, afraid to step wrong. We worked too hard and lost too much to let it vanish. We have to stand up and fight again.
WES: I feel like I’m back in the 1950s. I remember separate bathrooms and colored seating at Union Station. Now it’s another form of the same hatred—more cunning, just as vicious. They’re still killing us, Black folks, brown folks, queer folks. The robes might be gone, but the mindset is the same. What hurts most is how little we can do. And if you’re gay on top of it, you’re even more at risk.
ELLA: What would you say to LGBTQ+ youth today?
WES: I wish I could tell them it’s easier. But they’re fighting the same battles we did—just in different ways. The good news is they have each other. We didn’t have that many organizations or networks. Now they can gather, mobilize, and be visible. That’s power.
OLIVIA: Don’t give up. Keep the fight going.
—Ella Talerico