Live From Pride: A Sneak Peak Inside Masterman’s LGBTQ+ Celebration

“Testing, 1-2-3. Live from Pride! We’re making shirts as we speak!” opens Ms. Waber as we sit in Room 9 on a Monday, speaking into a phone that is audio recording. Desks are positioned in two rows that wrap around the classroom, and colored patches, white shirts, fabric markers, and the like decorate the room across desks and the floor. The purpose of these materials in the basement classroom? Pride party shirts, for June 8th. In fact, one shirt is worked on as we meet during an Allies meeting; vibrant letters spelling out “Masterman” are being ironed onto a white shirt by Ms. Waber, the Allies sponsor. 

Ms. Waber laid out her plans for the day, which she and Allies have been thinking about since last year but postponed until this year due to a lack of adequate time to organize it. “We wanted it to be a community celebration,” she recalled. Crediting Francis and Leo for much of the brainstorming process, she said that they wanted it to resemble a Pride Festival. “Just the joy…the idea that it's a huge community celebration that everyone takes part in,” Ms. Waber responded when asked what she remembered from her experiences with Philly Pride and what she wanted to channel into Masterman’s own event, which the club hopes will be the first of many similar ones. “I think it's really important for our Masterman community to…see each other for who we are, and accept each other for who we are, and celebrate, especially in our LGBTQ+ community…” she added, as she is also organizing other community-building events for the school for the 2023-2024 school year. 

Allies has arranged the agenda carefully, with a schedule of student rotations throughout the day and a series of engaging activities for all students taking place on the roof. There will be performances from a variety of musical groups (with a current standing of Biddy Bee & Allie Bee, Lauryn Ciardullo (Class of 2022), Rain Delay (Class of 2022), Jenna Devin (12-3), a teacher band, and Masterman’s Sweet Sixteen), a performance about the Harlem Ball Scene by Jason Zhang (10-4) and Cyrus Fisher (10-2) vendors from Masterman’s own VIBE Art Club, education on social justice in relation to LGBTQ+ topics, poetry and book recommendations, and a dance party to close the day during eighth period. 

Allies also has ideas for the coming years that will be portrayed in the upcoming festival. “We also want to highlight…the importance of being a family at Masterman…it's important to think about future generations, present generations, and the past alumni, and bring everybody together…” Ms. Waber mentioned in the interview—another signal to her community-building goals in the school. Currently, Allies is working to connect the high school to the middle school, and are inviting middle school students to an Allies meeting and subsequently offering for them to run an event at the party, too.

With that being said, this is just a short preview of what students will experience later this week. We will see you there!