Happy 2012 and welcome to our annual ICON issue! Admittedly—this is one of our favorite themes each season. It was our first effort as the newly rebranded Vital VOICE Magazine in January 2010—and over the past two years, we’ve celebrated 14 LGBT and allied St. Louisans who both enrich and empower our prismatic community each day.
This year we’re proud to honor one individual and one organization as part of our St. Louis ICONS series. Muny Executive Producer Mike Isaacson and local non-profit Project St. Louis have distinguished themselves over the past several years, and we're excited to share a bit of their respective stories.
ST. LOUIS ICON: MIKE ISAACSON
FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE
“Film takes all of this artifice to tell a lie, while theatre takes all of this artifice to tell the truth. People go to movies to believe the lie. People who go to the theatre somehow feel a truth to varying degrees. It’s that human connection on stage—it’s that human connection around you.” – Mike Isaacson
“I’m just living me,” says Muny Executive Producer Mike Isaacson when asked if he’s living the dream.
Isaacson’s first memory of the theatre was a regional production of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown in Deerfield, Illinois and his love for the art form has grown ever since. The Wisconsin native enrolled at St. Louis University in 1982 where he volunteered as an usher at the nearby and newly renovated Fox Theatre and later co-founded a theatre company to bring popular musicals to campus.
Following graduation, Isaacson worked at SLU for eight years—first as assistant to Father Biondi and then as vice president for institutional advancement.
“I was in my early 30s and didn’t want to work in a university my entire life,” he explains. “So I actually quit before I knew what I was going to do and focused on finishing up my MBA.”
A friend made the prophetic suggestion that Isaacson should just do what he loves and become a Broadway producer. He soon found himself having lunch with David Fay who he knew from being a journalist at SLU.
“It was just one of those weird things where the timing was right,” he shares. “I said why don’t I do something for you over the summer—basically, I’ll work for free for you for three months and we’ll see if we’re simpatico here. But the deal is—if you like what you see you have to hire me on Labor Day. And he said, okay—we’ll do that.”
Isaacson would eventually head Fox Theatricals with partner Kristin Caskey. Together they produced Broadway musicals: Red (2010 Tony
“It is a part of me,” he explains about theatre. “I’m not quite sure I even to this day understand it—but I have accepted it. It requires something. There’s a certain amount of determination, there’s certainly an amount of sacrifice. It’s hard, but you really have no right to complain, because I feel so lucky.”
For centuries, LGBTers have found employment and safe haven in the artistic embrace of the theatre. What’s more—our stories are oftentimes told first from the shadows of the stage. Theatre has always been at the cutting edge of social change.
“Gay people have always played an important role in the life of the theatre and the creation of the theatre—they are attracted to it and it’s very welcoming,” says Isaacson. “That’s very moving to me. It’s gone from being a covert thing—to an overt thing—to just understood. And everyone in the theatre community—gay, straight or whatever is very accepting.”
Isaacson came out to friends at 25 while working at SLU and officially on campus after a co-worker publicly asked about the tan he’d gotten at the 1993 March on Washington.
“Denial’s a pretty powerful force,” he says. “But there was finally a moment where I realized, you know what, this isn’t just about you anymore, you are kind of messing with other people’s lives. The ramifications of ‘the lie’ of other people began to bother more than it did on me. So I just sort of took a deep breath and came out.”
A firm believer in giving back, Isaacson served on one of the early fundraising committees for St. Louis Effort For AIDS, helped organize the first Dining Out for Life event in St. Louis, is an HRC Federal Club Member and has worked with every production he has been involved with to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
“We’re in such an interesting middle ground because the people before us really blazed the trail and the ones after us are getting all of the benefits,” he states. “If you think about just what’s happened to us in our adult life—I never thought any of that was possible in my 20s. We certainly did our part. I think one of the surprising events of the AIDS crisis was it forced us to get real and be honest and stop pretending on so many levels.”
Earlier this year, Isaacson accepted the job as Executive Producer of the famed St. Louis Municipal Opera (The Muny), succeeding Paul Blake. His personal charge is to make sure the beloved outdoor theatre is around for future generations to enjoy.
“One of the reasons I so wanted to do it is its roots are ultimately civic,” he explains. “One of its pillars is the idea of: let’s have a place in St. Louis where everyone feels welcome and we all come together during the summer to experience stories. I think that’s extraordinary. It’s mind boggling. There’s no theatre like this in the country or in the world.”
“The challenge is to make audiences eight to 80 feel welcome,” Isaacson concludes. “People think it’s about the politics of the show, and it’s not. It’s about the experience. That’s what I’ve tried to show in the arc of my first season. You look at it and go—oh, there’s something here for everybody. And that’s what it has to be.”
BY: COLIN MURPHY – SENIOR WRITER/EDITOR
***
ST. LOUIS ICON: PROJECT ST. LOUIS
WITH TODD ALAN VILMER
Todd Alan Vilmer knew this “project” was doing something right when he met a mother and her five-month-old child.
“We were doing the NOH8 St. Louis campaign all over the city and I was contacted by this woman who wanted to know if she could bring her baby to get a photo together with the NoH8 campaign. She wanted people to look at this photo and know that her children would never be raised around hate or discrimination. It was so heartwarming and it was exactly what we were trying to convey,” he says.
Todd sits at a table at Just Johns where the first NOH8 St. Louis photo shoot was held and where Project St. Louis took its very own baby steps in the world of LGBTQ community work.
“The NOH8 campaign here in St. Louis was one of the most amazing community projects to happen here because it was a true COMMUNITY effort. It was truly amazing to see everyone who came out of the woodwork and said they wanted to be a part of this campaign: blacks, whites, gay, straight, young and old,” he says.
Project St. Louis has since become a recognized and active partner in LGBTQ philanthropy and has even put its own rainbow stamp on staple St. Louis events like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Planned Parenthood’s ChoiceArt and Effort for AIDS’ Thirst and Dining Out for Life.
Today, the NOH8 photos that once lined the walls of Just Johns are now housed at the LGBT Center of St. Louis as the single largest private art donation ever to an LGBTQ Center. But Project St. Louis’ work has extended beyond that massive photo shoot. We caught up with Todd Alan and talked to him about Project St. Louis and how he envisions its role in the future of St. Louis’ LGBTQ community.
How did Project St. Louis begin?
It all really got started when Proposition 8 was passed in California and the NoH8 campaign began to get lots of mainstream press [2009]. We wanted to figure out how we could convey that same message here and so under the direction and guidance from the NOH8 Campaign’s website we began to formulate our own Missouri contribution and Project St. Louis was born. We raised over $10,000 for the Human Rights Campaign, PROMO and other groups fighting for equality with our St. Louis based project and had about 1,400 people photographed for marriage equality including Mayor Slay and even some state representatives. People from every walk of life came out!
We began asking ourselves what was next and what more we could do after the campaign so we changed our name from NOH8STL to Project St. Louis so we could convey that we are more than that campaign. We’re a network of volunteers who want to contribute to LGBTQ community building all over St. Louis.
What were the conversations like to get people on board with the NOH8 St. Louis Project?
What was amazing about the process was that we didn’t have to ‘pitch’ the idea to really anyone. After the fist photo shoot we did at Just Johns all the bars were contacting us asking to bring the photo shoot to them. So many students and SLU kids were also so passionate about the project and getting the word out and bringing in four to five hundred people every night to get their photos taken. We were also fortunate to have media partners with Vital VOICE, ALIVE and the RFT and it just blew up. Shane Cohn was also instrumental in getting our local politicians and the Mayor into the photos. We just took the original seed idea and it just exploded.
How did you get started in LGBTQ activism here in St. Louis?
It really snuck up on me. I used to go to this restaurant in Webster called Zinnia all the time and there I started to meet people who were involved with PAWS. So through meeting them, I started going to PAWS events and volunteering for them. This was about 15 years ago and it kinda morphed into this passion. Then, seven years ago I started Thirst for Life for the organization which is the bar and coffee house version of Dining Out for Life.
Do you ever worry about burning out?
Yes, but there are so many great people here. People don’t give St. Louis credit. It is a vibrant community and even if I go home tired and I feel like I can’t do this anymore I remember who I’m helping. So far I’m not tired of it yet [laughs].
Where do you see Project St. Louis fitting into LGBTQ community work in STL?
We want to begin raising significant amounts of money that can go to benefit a variety of different LGBTQ organizations like the Gateway Men’s Chorus or Pride or Doorways. We want to be a catalyst for collaborative community work and partnerships in the community. We definitely want to support The Center and help take it to the next level with fundraising, finding grants and private donors.
So is cohesion then the biggest challenge in the future for our LGBTQ community organizing?
Definitely. For me, the utopia would be for all of these amazing smaller LGBTQ organization to be under one roof...ideally The Center where all of our resources are housed together. Obviously there are some organizations that are too big for that but it would allow the smaller ones to remain independent but have access to more support.
How does it feel to be named as an Icon organization in St. Louis?
It’s humbling to have someone recognize the organization like that. The NoH8 Project meant so much to all of us that it is honoring that people are putting an icon label on the project.
What do you hope to accomplish in 2012 with Project St. Louis?
We want to help raise the LGBT Center to the forefront of St. Louis and with an election year we hope to work with PROMO to hold our elected leaders accountable for promises made. Also, look out for a greater community wide program that allows patrons of dozens of participating restaurants, bars and retail outlets to make a difference with every purchase, all for local charitable organizations. So keep your eyes open because we have a lot of great things coming.
BY: JOSHUA BARTON – ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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