Giselle Byrd Named Executive Director of The Theater Offensive

After a nationwide search, The Theater Offensive has announced theater and film producer, talent manager, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Giselle Byrd as its new executive director. The appointment makes Byrd the first Black trans woman to lead a regional theater company in the United States. 

A long time theater and arts executive, Byrd brings to TTO her expertise in production, casting, script coverage, brand management, and fundraising. She most recently worked at the Katz Company in New York, where for nine years she managed the careers of rising and prominent actors, musicians, activists, and content creators, while simultaneously creating brand strategies and developing partnerships with companies such as Google, LVMH, OPI, The WNBA, and others. As a documentary film producer, Byrd was the first transgender woman accepted in the Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Filmmaker Program. 

The Theater Offensive (TTO), founded in 1989, presents liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color, transcending artistic boundaries, celebrating cultural abundance, and dismantling oppression. TTO is currently building the Boylston Black Box, which will be the world’s largest theater owned and operated by queer and trans people of color. 

“Giselle is more than ready to meet this moment of change in American theater, and this moment of possibility and threat for the queer and trans community,” said Stetson Marshall, chair of TTO’s Board of directors. “Her vision of art as critical to social justice, her deep connections with many communities, her superb people skills, her lived experience as a transgender woman of color, and her varied theater accomplishments together make her an ideal executive director as TTO enters an exciting era.” 

“I’m excited to lead The Theater Offensive on its journey of theater innovation and queer and trans liberation,” said Giselle Byrd. “While traditionally marginalized voices are being silenced, and trans women of color, like myself, suffer an epidemic of violence, TTO centers those creative voices 365 days a year. I’m thrilled to join TTO’s work of redefining the American theater landscape.“ 

TTO’s Boylston Black Box Theater, anticipated to open in 2025, will honor the queer and trans history of the Fenway neighborhood and serve as a beacon to the local, national, and global QTPOC community. It will function as a safe and creative space for queer and trans artists of color from all over the world, where new works from across the arts spectrum – including theater, movement, visual arts and spoken word – can be nurtured and developed outside the confines of commercial theater. 

In this multi-use facility, TTO will build on its award-winning youth programming, produce and present groundbreaking queer and trans art and performance, and host the community for civic engagements and intergenerational gathering. 

"Over the past year or so, we at the Gardner have been honored to collaborate and learn from The Theater Offensive as it embarks on a major expansion of its physical space and positive impact on our community. I am so excited to have Giselle as a partner in exploring how together, with our distinctive missions, we can welcome and celebrate QTPOC identities and creativity,” said Peggy Fogelman, Norma Jean Calderwood Director at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “I am sure Giselle will be an essential leader in Boston’s cultural sector. The Gardner team looks forward to working with her and her talented TTO staff to chart an inclusive future through the arts in the Fenway neighborhood and beyond." 

Byrd earned her B.F.A. at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She serves on the boards of the Ali Forney Center, the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. 

TTO’s executive director search was led by Geoff Chang of the Arts Consulting Group. 

An important cultural and queer and trans Boston institution, The Theater Offensive is home to True Colors: Out Youth Theater; the Queer Family Series; and most recently, Queer (Re)public. Launched in 2021, Queer (Re)public honors, uplifts, and builds on emergent themes inherent to QTPOC art through workshops, residency programs, and commissioning art. 

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