Writing Wins
Sidewalk Fellow Kendra Christel on Voicing Underrepresented Victories
Profiled by Annika Ringen
Kendra Christel
From singing in a schoolyard girl group to reporting live on her dad’s camcorder to winning a college essay contest at age eight, if there’s one thing Kendra Christel has always known how to do, it’s use her voice. The writer-actress-singer grew up to become the BroadwayWorld Austin Vocalist of the Decade and Performer of the Decade, a winner of WeScreenplay's Feature Competition as well as advancing in other prominent competitions, and most recently the Stowe Story Labs Sidewalk Film Festival Fellow.
The Sidewalk Fellowship is awarded to a screenwriter who presents a meaningful character-driven story focused on underrepresented voices. Christel’s drama feature, In His Image, explores themes of family and religion through the voices of BIPOC, female, and LGBTQ+ characters and allies.
“I knew that I wanted [In His Image] to be centered around BIPOC characters. I knew that I wanted to include my LGBTQ allies into the narrative as a normal piece of the narrative, not the snazzy best friend, … into the narrative, into the core of it,” Christel says.
Her story follows Catalene, a shy, unassuming girl who idolizes her older brother, Leon, a drag queen and beautician. When Leon is brutally assaulted, Catalene enters a stiletto marathon in hopes of winning the cash prize to put towards Leon’s cosmetology tuition. Catalene launches into training to get in shape for the competition but soon comes to find out that to wear a pair of heels, really wear them, she needs more than physical strength. With the help of Leon’s drag family, Catalene remakes herself and with newfound confidence becomes not only a winner of the race but also the woman she was always meant to be.
Christel herself was brought up under the wing of her drag queen cousin, Leon (drag name Crayola), and presently performs her own drag to raise money and awareness for HIV/AIDS as an LGBTQ ally. For Catalene’s character to run the race in her brother’s honor, it was important to Christel that she could provide authentic support for him without having to be the same as him.
“I think it's important sometimes for us allies to learn how to be an ally in our own skin without mimicking, like sometimes it's okay to let the people you're protecting have what they have. It doesn't always need to include you for it to be valid and worth protecting. So I really wanted Catalene to not have to be a whole drag queen to win. I wanted her to be herself,” Christel says.
In In His Image, Catalene and Leon champion in the face of a life-long bully, their father’s archaic ideas of masculinity, and their mother’s need for acceptance from their church community. Christel likes to write what she calls the “other stories:” instead of writing about the injustices experienced by underrepresented communities, she writes stories about people from those communities who are unapologetically victorious.
Kendra keeping time during a Mentor Round Table at the 2023 Sidewalk Narrative Lab. Photo by David A. Smith.
“I just like to show LGBTQ people and BIPOC people living energetically, doing regular-ass things, and winning. Like, I don't want it to be a movie all about sorrow and hardship and all that. I just want to show us living a life and winning at it and being happy.”
In August, Christel participated in Stowe’s Sidewalk Lab. She describes her time there as formative, being able to pinpoint small tweaks that make a world of difference in her narrative. Beyond script feedback, Christel also notes the impact of spending time among other writers, discussing their work, ideas, and how their perspective of the world informs their writing.
“It was just transcendent, just being in the same space for days at a time with writers that I could actually admire and look up to and learn something from, not just the mentors that came, but the fellow fellows and other writers attending the labs,” says Christel.
Christel was not only awarded the Sidewalk Fellowship for her compelling narrative, but for the voice she has as a writer and as a person.
“Getting into somewhere because you wrote this thing, it's always great to know that, but to get into a place, to get into a space like that because of the writer you are, now that was next level flattery. I was so honored,” Christel says.
As an award-winning writer, actress, and singer, Christel uses her voice in many powerful forms, one of which is to give thanks.
“I just want to thank my parents, my sister Ebone, and my drag family. I love y'all. I'm so grateful,” says Christel.
The biggest thanks to her partner, Profound.
Interview by Annika Ringen
Annika is a graduate of the University of Vermont, which means she is entering that “real world” everyone has been telling her so much about. During her time in la la land Annika wrote and directed a one act play that was staged for UVM’s annual Fringe Festival, was a staff writer for UVM’s alternative newspaper ‘The Watertower’ (stay wet!), was published in the Burlington Free Press, Barton Chronicle, Waterbury Roundabout, and Community News Service, interned with an outdoor gear company to advocate for female accessibility in outdoor recreation, and was president of the club field hockey team. She also attended the 2022 June Narrative Lab as the UVM Fellow for her feature length comedy about a young immature man who marries a spitfire widow over twice his age as a practical joke but falls in love with her as a best friend. Currently, Annika interns with Stowe Story Labs, skis, hikes, snowshoes, mountain bikes, backpacks, you name it, and crochets hats for dogs.