Ron Goldberg   (Photo: Bill Bytsura)

Ron Goldberg
Goldberg, HIV-negative and a frustrated actor, accidentally wandered into his first meeting at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center in 1987 and knew immediately that he’d found the stage he’d been looking for, a place where theater might possibly save lives. From that moment until 1995, he was the prolific author of those pointed chants that came to define the group. A memorable one, used in a City Hall demonstration after Mayor Koch had issued a baffling declaration that he wasn’t gay: “City AIDS care is ineffectual, thanks to Koch the heterosexual.” It earned him a formal coronation as the Chant Queen, which irritated him only slightly. “I wanted to be called the Chant-euse,” he says.

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