‘Luci Speaks,’ a Trans life illuminated, at the Rosendale Theatre

“Luci Speaks” is a spoken word performance of poetry by Rosendale resident Luci Aprilwine Windsong-Rain, accompanied by musician Alison Damrath performing improv music on her bass-run-effects apparatus she calls “The Beast.” The two-hour show, 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19, at the Rosendale Theatre, 408 Main St., Rosendale, is a fundraiser to support Luci’s pre- and post-op sex-reassignment surgery. Luci invites the community and friends to come and support her as she shares her life and talents. Her performance is based on her own life experiences. She was born in San Francisco, California, in 1949 and grew up in the Bay Area. At a very young age she knew she was a different gender than the body she was born in. As a result she grew up in turmoil, in an indifferent, dysfunctional, fatherless home. She left at the early age of 15 and landed in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco by 1965. It was there that she became part of the Family Dog Commune, founded by Chet Helms, who gave her a job as a stage hand at the Avalon Ballroom. She was known then as Lukie. During the mid to late ’60s she worked all the San Francisco ballrooms as well as the trips festivals, the free concerts in Golden Gate Park, the infamous Monterey Pop and Altamont festivals. By the late ’60s, Luci had learned to operate sound systems from Osley Stanley, and was given a job as a professional sound tech on the Bob McClure road crew division of Alempic Sound Company, founded by Stanley and Rey Wasserman. She spent the next 20 years, through the 1970s and ’80s, on the road, working tours with big named bands. Luci left the road and landed locally in the early 1990s. Luci volunteers at the Rosendale Theatre, the LGBTQ Center in Kingston, and at Bethel Woods (near the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival). She is also an organizer of the Hudson Valley Pride March and Festival in New Paltz and is involved with the Trans Art Therapy Coalition.  She also plays tambourine with the Rosendale Improvement Association Brass Band and Social Club and Tin Horn Uprising activist band. Join the community for an afternoon of power, beauty and resilience. For more information, visit rosendaletheatre.org or call 658-8989.