Noel Alumit
BornManila, Philippines
OccupationNovelist, Actor, Visual Artist
EducationUniversity of Southern California
Website
thelastnoel.blogspot.com

Noël Alumit is an American novelist, actor, and activist.[1] He was identified as one of the Top 100 Influential Gay People by Out Magazine.[2]

Early life

He was born the second of four children, in Baguio, the Philippines, and raised in Los Angeles, United States.[1] He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from the University of Southern California and later studied playwriting at the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute at East West Players.[3] He received his Master of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy from the University of the West.

In addition to his writing, Alumit has worked as an HIV/AIDS educator with the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team in Los Angeles.[4]

Writing

Alumit's play Mr. and Mrs. La Questa Go Dancing was produced by Teatro Ng Tanan in San Francisco and also in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Boston, and Philadelphia.[5]

His one-man show, The Rice Room: Scenes From a Bar, premiered in Santa Monica in 1999,[6] and was later staged at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center in 2000.[7] It was voted one of the best solo shows of the year by the San Francisco Bay Guardian,[5] and played to sold-out houses in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities. He also wrote and performed another successful solo show, Master of the (Miss) Universe, at Highways Performance Art Space in Santa Monica, California.[8] Master of the (Miss) Universe was named "Best Bet" by The Los Angeles Times.[2]

His debut novel, Letters to Montgomery Clift (MacAdam/Cage), was published in 2002,[4][9] and received the 2003 Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association,[1] the Violet Quill Award from Insight Out Books,[1] the Global Filipino Literary Award from Our Own Voice[1] and the Gold Seal from ForeWord magazine.[1] His second novel, Talking to the Moon, was released in late 2006 by Carroll & Graf.[1] His collection of short stories Music Heard in Hi-Fi was published in 2023.

His work has also been published in Tilting the Continent (New Rivers Press), Take Out (Asian American Writers Workshop/Temple University), Subterraneans, DisOrient, and Lion's Roar.[10]

Acting credits

As an actor, Alumit's film and TV credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, The Young and the Restless, and Red Surf.[3] He has performed in many Los Angeles productions, including the world premiere of Chay Yew's A Language of Their Own (LA Weekly Theater Award for Ensemble Performance) and Michael Kearns' Who's Afraid of Edward Albee.[3]

He can be seen in Alliance (Rad Love Productions) and the forthcoming Pearls Lost directed by Rebecca Ocampo.

Honors

Alumit received an Emerging Voices Fellowship from PEN Center USA West[1] and a Community Access Scholarship to UCLA's Writers Extension, studying fiction and the personal essay form.[3]

He was awarded the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in 2010.[11]

He was appointed to the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs in 2012.[12]

Bibliography

  • Mr. and Mrs. La Questa Go Dancing - A play about a Filipino couple dancing the night away, finding new meaning to their lives by retelling stories about their son[13]
  • The Rice Room: Scenes From a Bar (1999) - A one-man show portraying the life as a gay Asian man in Los Angeles, told through six characters[14]
  • Master of the (Miss) Universe (2001) - A one-man show describing life as a young, gay, Filipino boy growing up in the Ramparts area of Los Angeles, while using authentic video footage from various beauty contests[15]
  • Letters to Montgomery Clift (2002) - A coming of age story of Bong Bong Luwad, a Filipino boy, who enlists the spirit of 1950s screen idol Montgomery Clift to help him find his mother who is imprisoned in the Philippines under the Marcos regime
  • Talking to the Moon (2006) - A magic realism story about an immigrant family and their American-raised son

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Emmanuel S. Nelson, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2009. ISBN 978-0-313-34859-4. p. 21.
  2. 1 2 "Out 100: Books". Out, December 2002. p. 78.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Alumit, Noel 1968-". encyclopedia.com, 2008.
  4. 1 2 "Montgomery and me". The Advocate, July 9, 2002.
  5. 1 2 Wenying Xu, Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater. Scarecrow Press, 2012. ISBN 9780810855779. p. 24.
  6. ↑ "Alumit's Solo Rice Room Ends in SF Feb. 20". Playbill, February 20, 2000.
  7. ↑ "Solo artist captivates in 'The Rice Room'". SFGate.com, February 12, 2000.
  8. ↑ "Noel Alumit premieres Master of the (Miss) Universe at Highways". The Advocate, August 31, 2001.
  9. ↑ Dhalla, Ghalir Shiraz. "For Saints and Sinners: First-time novelist Noel Alumit writes to the dead." Asianweek. San Francisco, Calif.:Apr 24, 2002. Vol. 23, Iss. 35, p. 25.
  10. ↑ "Lion's Roar welcomes a new associate editor, Noel Alumit". Lion's Roar. August 5, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Lee Lynch and Noel Alumit recipients of James Duggins Mid-Career Author Award". Lambda Literary Foundation, April 15, 2010.
  12. ↑ "L.A. Gay Pride 2012: Novelist Noel Alumit Answers 'What Does It Mean To Be Gay?". LA Weekly, June 8, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Mr. & Mrs. LaQuesta Go Dancing". Theater Mania.
  14. ↑ Robert Hurwitt (February 12, 2000). "Solo artist captivates in 'The Rice Room'". San Francisco Chronicle.
  15. ↑ F. Kathleen Foley (September 6, 2001). "Pageant of the Disenfranchised". Los Angeles Times.
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