“Fellow Travelers’ National Tour Marks 10th Anniversary with Impact”

The New York-based artistic collective Up Until Now has announced a national tour for the opera Fellow Travelers to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The tour will take place across more than ten cities in 2026 and 2027, featuring performances at renowned venues such as Seattle Opera, Portland Opera, San Diego Opera, Glimmerglass Festival in New York, Austin Opera, and Cincinnati Opera.

This anniversary celebration will be complemented by the Lavender Names Project, a groundbreaking collaboration with the American LGBTQ+ Museum. This initiative aims to illuminate LGBTQ+ history and foster community engagement across the nation. The project will involve grassroots archival research and outreach efforts in collaboration with libraries, universities, and LGBTQ+ organizations in each city visited by the tour.

The Lavender Names Project seeks to collect photographs and narratives from members of the LGBTQ+ community who faced systemic discrimination, including job loss and mistreatment by federal and local authorities in the United States. This includes historical periods from the Lavender Scare of 1953 to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of the 1990s, extending to present-day challenges. Each performance venue will host curated lobby installations displaying these collected stories and exhibits that document the history of the Lavender Scare.

In a statement, Kevin Newbury, the director of Fellow Travelers, emphasized the significance of this tour and project. He said, “The national tour of ‘Fellow Travelers’ and the Lavender Names Project arrives at a moment when we are experiencing a dramatic rise in systemic attacks on the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and a deliberate attempt to erase LGBTQ+ history. We are asking members of our community to share their stories so that we may uncover and preserve this history. The photos will be part of an ever-growing visual archive that will appear on stage at the end of each performance as a living memorial to the many LGBTQ+ people who suffered this decades-long persecution.”

Based on the best-selling novel by Thomas Mallon, Fellow Travelers features music by composer Gregory Spears and a libretto by Greg Pierce. The opera premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016 and has since garnered attention for its poignant exploration of LGBTQ+ themes.

As the tour approaches, audiences can look forward to a powerful blend of artistic performance and historical reflection, marking a significant milestone for both the opera and the LGBTQ+ community.