Quick Facts
Biography
Noël Alumit is an American novelist, actor, and activist. He was identified as one of the Top 100 Influential Gay People by Out Magazine in 2002.
Early life
He was born, the second of four children, in Baguio City, the Philippines, and raised in Los Angeles, United States. 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.
In addition to his writing, Alumit has worked as an HIV/AIDS educator with the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team in Los Angeles.
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.
His one-man show, The Rice Room: Scenes From a Bar, premiered in Santa Monica in 1999, and was later staged at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center in 2000. It was voted one of the best solo shows of the year by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, 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. Master of the (Miss) Universe was named "Best Bet" by The Los Angeles Times.
His debut novel, Letters to Montgomery Clift (MacAdam/Cage), was published in 2002, and received the 2003 Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association, the Violet Quill Award from Insight Out Books, the Global Filipino Literary Award from Our Own Voice and the Gold Seal from ForeWord magazine. His second novel, Talking to the Moon, was released in late 2006 by Carroll & Graf.
His work has also been published in Tilting the Continent (New Rivers Press), Take Out (Asian American Writers Workshop/Temple University), Subterraneans, and the literary journal DisOrient.
Acting credits
As an actor, Alumit's film and TV credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, The Young and the Restless, and Red Surf. 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.
Honors
Alumit received an Emerging Voices Fellowship from PEN Center USA West and a Community Access Scholarship to UCLA's Writers Extension, studying fiction and the personal essay form.
He was awarded the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in 2010.
He was appointed to the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs in 2012.