good stuff
■ by Sydney Johnson
Cap Quest
Creatively Driven Amid the pandemic, many theater companies resorted to virtual shows or shut down completely. Enter, stage left, Xander Tilock. During quarantine, the Justice High School student (now a rising senior) decided to write a full-length play, A Winter
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Knowing that her job required a lot of face time with clients, and not wanting to have to explain, repeatedly, that she had cancer, Lord decided to give cold caps a try. She acquired four rented gel caps, an electric blanket (to keep warm during treatments) and 40 pounds of dry ice, and used the caps during her treatments at The George Washington University Hospital. Thanks to this technology, Lord kept most of her hair—but cold caps aren’t cheap. They can cost $250-$500 per infusion and are not covered by insurance. So in 2018, she launched the nonprofit Cold Capital Fund, which is run by a board of cancer survivors and provides financial assistance to patients who want to keep their hair with cold caps, but
otherwise would not be able to afford the technology. To date, the nonprofit has provided $50,000 in assistance for about 70 chemotherapy patients in the D.C. area. “[Helping] is so gratifying,” says Lord, who lives in Donaldson Run. “Just when I think ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this,’ we’ll approve a patient, and they will write me the most heartfelt and impactful, often hard-to-read emails...and it’s worthwhile.” coldcapitalfund.org
Star, in which “winterland” creatures searching for a missing star discover that its magic has been within them all along. Tilock pitched his script to Encore Stage & Studio, an Arlington nonprofit that typically produces eight fully staged shows a year with actors and crew members who are under 18. No stranger to the stage, Tilock has been in 19 Encore productions since 2014. A Winter Star was his second directorial debut. After receiving a green light from Encore, he launched a crowdfunding site to cover the play’s production costs and raise money for the kids’ theater, whose programs were languishing during Covid’s unwelcome intermission. Social distancing necessitated a different approach, so Tilock staged his production drivethrough style in December. Patrons arrived by car at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church and donated any amount they were able to give, then drove from scene to scene, with actors performing in the open air.
Billed as a seasonal holiday show, A Winter Star pulled in more than $12,000. Tilock, 17, says only a small fraction of the funds was needed to cover costume and set costs. The rest went to Encore’s Theatre for All! Fund, which supports the nonprofit’s ongoing mission to offer classes, camps and performance opportunities to all kids, regardless of their economic means. Riding the wave of that success, Tilock penned another play, Voyager’s Compass, which opened in drivethrough form in May at WashingtonLiberty High School, with encore performances in July at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More and Lubber Run Amphitheater. It drew more than 530 theater-goers. “[Encore is] a true ensemble; it feels like a family,” says the teen, who lives in Lake Barcroft and completed an intensive playwriting workshop with Northwestern University this summer. “I feel like I have really grown as a person and leader there. It’s my favorite place to be.” encorestageva.org
Liz Lord
COURTESY PHOTOS
In 2016, Liz Lord’s life was turned upside down. Married with two young kids, she had recently left a job as an attorney, earned her real estate license and switched careers. That’s when she got the breast cancer diagnosis. After undergoing a bilateral mastectomy, Lord needed chemo therapy. She remembered her son’s teacher had also undergone chemo and managed to keep her hair, thanks to “cold capping”—a promising procedure in which patients wear caps filled with freezing cold gel or liquid before, during and after infusions to prevent hair loss. The caps need to be frozen in dry ice and changed every 20-30 minutes. Some cancer centers have scalp-cooling machines to help with the rotation.
September/October 2021 ■ ArlingtonMagazine.com
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