Content Advisory: Racism / Ethnic Discrimination, Sexism / Genderism, Homophobia, Derogatory Slurs, Emotional Abuse, Physical Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use, Medical Oppression, Health Struggles, Loss / Grief
Adlaidie “L.A.” Walker (she/her) is a playwright, producer, composer, activist, and former faith leader. Born on September 28, 1953 on the South Side of Chicago, she spent her early childhood with adoptive parents. At 7 years old, she was reunited with her birth mother (herself a queer faith leader. L.A. went from running the streets as an independent kid to abiding by a bedtime and regularly attending her mom’s church. The church her mother attended belonged to a queer organization where L.A. met her first love, Della. L.A. loved that her church organization celebrated queer joy, but couldn’t ignore that the church’s influence on her mother contributed to her complicated childhood adoption. She stopped attending church at 13, along with Della, a fellow skeptic. L.A.’s mother pressured her to break up with Della and date boys when she entered high school, which didn’t stop the bigoted bullying. At 14, L.A. was no longer welcome at home and moved into Della’s family residence where she spent her senior year.
At 23, L.A. joined the army, planning to become a journalist afterwards. Military service and broadcast training helped push her to take up more space and demand more respect. While serving in Panama, L.A. realized that “I wasn’t going to last in the military successfully and not be able to live my life.” She got an honorable discharge, and was relieved at her newfound freedom.
In the early ‘80s, she moved to Baltimore and worked as the director of news at WBGR. She worked there for a little over two years before finding out about her mother’s death, which derailed her career and pulled her back to the Midwest. L.A. became a minister to honor her mother, and years later began working in her old neighborhood, writing her first play for local kids.
L.A. met her future wife, Terry through the church in 1993. The first day they met, L.A. asked Terry to spend their lives together. In 2003, the couple moved to Vegas, where they hosted a regular radio show and founded a production company. At one of L.A.’s plays, she proposed to Terry to a standing ovation. They married in 2016.
In 2010, L.A. became the LGBT Outreach Director of the Clark County Democratic Black Caucus, a role that empowered her to harness her powers of building community. She built an artistic community, composing music and writing plays.
When Terry began exhibiting symptoms of cognitive decline, L.A. assumed a caregiving role and through this heartbreaking time, co-founded Social Issues Theater to build empathetic artistic communities for herself and others in her position. When L.A. noticed that other patients at Terry’s hospital didn’t know how to leverage their Medicaid benefits, she led workshops for them. After traveling to clinics for years, Terry was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in 2016, and passed away during quarantine in 2020. L.A. processed her grief into creating more supportive communities, starting the Enable Me Theater initiative to help caregivers process their feelings artistically.
She’s still creating art with the Social Issues Theater in Vegas, and has co-created an innovative program for Grief and Trauma Survivors “Healing begins with the story you tell yourself” with Social Issues Theatre Co-Executive Director, Marcia Norris. The course will be introduced during the UNLV 2025 OLLI Fall Semester. She also serves on the board of the Research Inclusion Supports Equity (RISE) Registry, which connects LGBTQIA+ people with cognitive issues and their caregivers to supportive programming. L.A. has a Facebook Social media presence “Life Be Lifing” where her podcast, Up is Higher Than Down, storytelling, and words of inspiration are expressed.

