As the night deepened, getting closer to 11:30pm, a group of people marched brazenly into and headed toward the back of Gemini's Lounge on Liberty Avenue in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, NY and proceeded to enjoy the pulsating mix of calypso, reggae and Indian chutney music. The crowd at Gemini, a mix of straight, bi-curious and gay and lesbian men and women, is mostly of East Indian descent from Guyana, the only English-speaking country on the northeast coast of South America.

In a black dress and dancing with her friends was Vermal Persaud, an incomplete transsexual of Indian descent originally from Guyana.

Vermal, as she prefers to be called, had come from a one-time performance of the play, Tara's Crossing, at the Richmond Hill High School on Saturday, May 17 and which told the story of her experience as a young boy struggling with his sexual identity, persecution in the countryside and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital, to asylum seeking and detention in the U.S, in Miami and Elizabeth, New Jersey. Along with some of her closest friends, the play's cast, and with the play's writer, director and producer, Vermal twirled and danced to the music blaring from two large speakers.

"Although the play does tell my story, it only tells of my experiences when I arrived in the U.S. and not of my complete experience back in Guyana," said Vermal shimmying and gyrating to the music as if she was casting off the memories of the pain she had endured.

As she explained, the name "Tara's Crossing" was taken from the Hindi word for star, which she attributes to her experience and likening to a star crossing in the night sky.

Prior to its performance at the high school, Tara's Crossing had been performed at several locations along the northeast, including its first performance at the famed Lucille Lortel Theater in Greenwich Village in New York, New York Law School and Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York, Penn State University, University Park, PA, and Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME.

Produced by Houses on the Moon Theater, the play was written and directed by Jeffery Solomon. According to Vermal, her attorney Pradeep Singla, who helped with the asylum petition, encouraged her to tell her story to Solomon, who wrote the play.

Solomon said he became interested in international gay and lesbian issues just after revealing his sexual identity to his mother. He said that back in 2003 he didn't know of the issues surrounding asylum, but came to realize its American dimensions as well.

"I started reaching out to gay organizations in San Francisco and in Washington, D.C. and I was introduced to Vermal by her attorney. To me there was something special about her story that made me want to tell it," he said.

The playwright whose plays have received national acclaim, including for "Santa Clause is Coming out" at HERE Independent Art and the Gene Frankel Playhouse, New York City, the Bailiwick in Chicago, the Coast in West Hollywood, and Sixth at Penn in San Diego, California. His plays have also received top honors at the 2002 Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theater Festival. He wrote the pilot episode for Jim Henson's "CityKids" which received an Emmy nomination for Best Children's Special and an Ollie Award for Excellence in Children Programming.

The play's cast included Aundre Chin, playing Tara, a graduate from C.W. Post, Long Island University; Ian Eaton, who played Officer Ray Donaldson, and whose credits include "All God's Chillun Got Wings" and "Dream Girls;" Nysheva Starr, playing Tara's mother, Bibi and the Immigration Officer, is a native of Brooklyn and received a Princess Grace Theater Fellowship and was an ensemble member that received five Audelco awards for "Damn Yankees;" and Emily Joy Weiner, playing Judith Bright, whose credits include performing in "Othello" at the West End Theater. She is also a co-founder of Houses on the Moon Theater Company.

A Brooklyn-based community activist, Steve Hemraj, who is also from Guyana and Vermal's friend, said, "The story is based on gays and lesbians who are not protected well in Guyana. The play is about Vermal's life and experiences in Guyana, her quest for freedom and to be granted asylum."

In one of the scenes, Hemraj recalled, when an attorney was interviewing Vermal, he reportedly called the Guyana Consulate and was told that there were no negative issues affecting gays in the country because there are no gays in Guyana.

Throughout the play and even up to the time of detention in U.S. facilities, Vermal insisted that she is a female trapped in a male's body. She recalled that in her self-imposed confinement in her home in Guyana, she often fantasized, as if play-acting as a man dressed as a woman or of being a drag queen were realities.

Shivani Rei, an Ozone Park resident who attended the play, said, "It was unfair for the type of treatment she [Tara] received. In my opinion, no one has the right to judge anyone."
Although Solomon wrote, directed and co-produced the play, which is about Vermal, Solomon and Weiner told her that compensation from proceeds from the play would only be one percent, which in one instance translated to $30.00.

"If the play is ever put into a movie, I was told that I would only get five percent of all proceeds," said Vermal.

Vermal said she is aware that Solomon and Weiner have received grants of close to $2,000 from government sources and that she was told that that money was used to pay the cast. The play's profile laid out on an informational sheet mentioned support from organizations such as American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, OutFront! Human Rights First, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Immigration Equality and Queens for Economic Justice. According to the informational sheet, Houses on the Moon Theater Company, "whose mission is to dispel ignorance and isolation through the theatrical amplification of unheard voices."

"Jeff told me that usually it's only the writer and the producer who would get money from the play and that any money I get would only be if I go to speak after a performance of the play," she said.
Vermal, who owns a beauty salon on Liberty Avenue in Queens, is considering her options, one of which is consultation with an attorney to assert her rights to proceeds from the play. She strenuously denied that she signed any agreement waiving her rights.

According to Vermal, she is hoping to raise the money to have the sexual reassignment surgery to complete her own crossing, her transition from male to female.