Lavender Names Project

The Lavender Names Project is a collaboration between the American LGBTQ+ Museum and Up Until Now Collective, created in tandem with the 10th anniversary tour of the opera Fellow Travelers which launches at Seattle Opera in February 2026 before traveling to more than a dozen U.S. cities. 

The Lavender Names Project is a grassroots, nation-wide archival research/community outreach initiative that aims to collect photos and stories of members of the LGBTQ+ community who were systematically discriminated against and fired by federal and local governments in the United States, including the military, from the “Lavender Scare” in the 1950s, to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the 1990s, to today. The photos will become part of an ever-growing visual archive which will appear on stage at the end of each Fellow Travelers opera performance.

About Fellow Travelers

Austin Opera is honored to premiere Fellow Travelers in Texas—exclusively as part of its 10th-anniversary national tour.

Austin Opera’s performances in February 2027 kick off the second year of a national tour that will bring this story to multiple cities across the US in 2026 and 2027, one of the largest consortium projects ever attempted in the US opera industry. The tour is being co-produced by the Up Until Now Collective. In 2026, the tour begins with Seattle Opera (February 21-March 1), Portland Opera (March 7–15), San Diego Opera (July 10–12) and New York’s Glimmerglass Festival (July 18–Aug. 16).

Fellow Travelers is based on Thomas Mallon’s best-selling 2007 novel. In 2023, CBS/Paramount premiered the Emmy-nominated mini-series adaptation of the novel starring Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey.

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