Ali Hoefnagel describes themselves ( preferred pronoun ) as "really lucky" despite recent setbacks—including a fire that gutted their apartment.
For the past three years, Hoefnagel has been the education and outreach director for Chicago's About Face Theatre while retaining a teaching artist position with Steppenwolf Theatre.
"We do a lot of different things at About Face," Hoefnagel told Windy City Times. "We engage in incredible social-justice dialogue and create socially conscious, justice-driven art based on what's happening in [the participants'] lives. We're teaching storytelling and movement-building—focusing on how to place our stories at the center of movements that we are a part of. It's art for social change that takes a lot of different shapes."
As well as co-directing a full production with the Youth Theatre Ensemble—which this year is the world premiere of Ad Hoc [Home] written and performed by Youth Ensemble members—Hoefnagel takes original queer theater to Chicago Public Schools ( CPS ), corporations, churches and community organizations.
Hoefnagel is also immersed in after-school programming at About Face similarly centered upon social-justice-based art.
However, as often happens in life, Hoefnagel's luck recently changed with unexpected speed—and in a monumental way.
On June 22, instead of accepting a well-deserved 30 Under 30 honor from Windy City Times, Hoefnagel was in hospital getting their gall bladder removed.
"I'd been having some really unmanageable pain under my ribs for the better part of a year," they recalled. "It culminated in a trip to the emergency room. I was told that the gall bladder was in really bad shape."
On July 18, Hoefnagel was less than a month into their recovery and back at work in final tech rehearsals ahead of Ad Hoc [Home]'s opening four days later.
"I got a phone call from my friend and co-director Kieren Kredell and she said there was a Facebook message that my apartment was on fire," Hoefnagel said.
The police called shortly afterward.
"The way they were talking about it was really scary," Hoefnagel added. "They asked if I had any pets in the building. I didn't know what I was going to come home to. It was pretty bad."
The fire destroyed Hoefnagel's entire apartment. The floor was covered with the charred debris of what used to the modest furniture, clothing and deeply personal keepsakes Hoefnagel owned. The walls around it were blackened by smoke. What had been a laboriously built first home was completely destroyed.
"I hadn't even been there a year," Hoefnagel said. "A long-term relationship had ended just before I moved in and I was looking to get a fresh start in my life. Then I lost everything."
No one else in Hoefnagel's building was hurt and there was very little damage to the other units.
Investigators determined the fire to have started in the electrical outlet behind Hoefnagel's bed. A search for the cause is still ongoing.
Without renters' insurance, all Hoefnagel had left were the clothes on their back and whatever could be salvaged from the devastation, including a record player and records; a small, stuffed penguin; and Hoefnagel's bikes, which were "a little worse for wear but luckily intact."
A huge fan of the rock band Sleater-Kinney, Hoefnagel had been collecting memorabilia for years.
"Almost all of that was gone," Hoefnagel said. "I grew up in a family where we didn't have very much but we had what we needed. It took me all of my 30 years and a lot of resources to believe I deserved a home and to build one for myself. It's devastating in a way that I never imagined. People say 'they are just things' but when you have spent so much time thinking about what home is and trying to create that on your own, something like this is truly hard to accept. I only went back to the apartment once. It was incredibly traumatic. I can't get the image out of my head so I'm trying to fill it with a future."
To that end, a GoFundMe was set up July 21 with the goal of raising $25,000 for Hoefnagel to "get back on her feet and cover the expenses of finding and moving into a new apartment."
The bulk of the money raised will "cover everything else—clothing, books, furniture, food, dishes along with personal items."
The campaign had already gathered more than $9,000 as of July 27.
"With everything that's going on in the world, money seems so trivial and unimportant,"Hoefnagel said. "But it has been really incredible. People I haven't talked to in a long time, people I have never met are sending well-wishes. It's been really heartening. The support that I have felt has made me feel like I can get to the other side of this."
To donate to Hoefnagel's Go Fund Me, visit: www.gofundme.com/2fprz5w.
