L Morgan Lee, Sasha Velour & More to be Featured in 2024 BREAKING THE BINARY THEATRE FESTIVAL

Breaking the Binary Theatre revealed the programming for the third annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. The festival, which will continue the groundbreaking theater company’s mission of producing work created and developed by transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) theatre artists, will take place October 21, 2024 – October 27, 2024.

The festival will open with TRUTH //: An Interdisciplinary Variety Show at Littlefield (625 Sackett St, Brooklyn NY) before continuing on at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater atPlaywrights Horizons.

"After celebrating BTB's second birthday in July, we are thrilled to announce the works we'll be developing and showcasing in our third annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival,” stated Strus. “After receiving over 200 full-length works by TNB2S+ writers to consider through our open call and submissions processes, we could not be more thrilled by how the dynamic line-up has come together. We are so honored to welcome, or in some cases welcome back, these illustrious artists to the Festival and simply cannot wait to welcome audiences to witness these works-in-progress next month at Littlefield and Playwrights Horizons."

All tickets for the festival are complimentary and will be available beginning Monday, October 7th at www.btb-nyc.com/24festival.  Casting will be announced at a later date.Festival casting is by The Telsey Office / Charlie Hano, CSA.

The current festival lineup includes:

Monday, October 21 at 7pm:

TRUTH //: An Interdisciplinary Variety Show

Co-conceived by Noax (they/them) and George Strus (they/them)

at Littlefield, 635 Sackett Street, Brooklyn

Following last year’s presentation of PARADISE, Noax and BTB Founding Artistic Director George Strus are joining forces again to create TRUTH //: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVUE at Littlefield. This special opening performance will showcase the talents of twelve stellar TNB2S+ artists and acts of various disciplines: vocalists, drag artists, comedians, and more showcasing original performance pieces inspired by the prompt "truth // dare."

Tuesday, October 22 at 7pm:

PRUNIN, HOEIN, N CUTTIN GRAPES

By Nissy Aya (Nissy; she/ze/we)

Directed by Dominique Rider

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

In the highly regimented xxxxx, we witness the lives and lessons of a community of femmes assigned to teach the tools of sexual pleasure to others. Led by Alpha and her right-hand, her beta, Bilinda, this proud community of hoes carries on just them and their chil'ren. But with the pressures of a Choosing looming, the community deals with an unexpected and daunting assignment.

Wednesday, October 23 at 7pm:

HARVEST OLIVES: A COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION

By Yaffa AS (they/she)

Developed in collaboration with Rad Pereira (they/them)

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

Drawing from Mx. Yaffa’s books of writing and poetry as a trans Palestinian death worker and community organizer, we invoke utopias, spiral through grief and jump between realms through a collective improvisation. We hold a container for chaos, intimacy, restorative devastation, falling apart, and space to commune with ancestors through oral history and experimentation. HARVEST OLIVES is adapted from Desecrated Poppies, Blood Orange, Inara with guidance from ancestors, community members, and guides.

Thursday, October 24 at 7pm

FIRESIDE DANCES

By MJ Kaufman (he/they)

Directed by Aya Ogawa

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

When 16-year-old Em decides to move from a farm in rural Oregon to Portland in order to go high school, she lands in the home of distant relatives: lesbian moms Greta and Annie and their overachieving 8-year-old Kaitlyn. Cultures clash between rural and urban queer lifestyles, class differences and politics but Em and Kaitlyn vow to stay sisters no matter what.

Friday, October 25 at 7pm

A RARE BIRD

Written and directed by Zaza Diana Oh (they/them)

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

A RARE BIRD is an interdisciplinary Play, Live Physical Intimacy, and Quiet and Honest Sex Show. One could say that it is the birth of a new genre of extreme slow porn. A Rare Bird captures Skye and Gabriel’s date on the carpeted floor against the couch of a studio apartment where neither is willing or able to make the first move. For Skye (ahem, the extrovert) and Gabriel, (ahem, the introvert) are stunted by their own respective shortcomings. We watch the date in real time with a VoiceEther (ahem, from Skye's POV) running.A RARE BIRD blends, defies, and subverts Erotic Thriller Cinema, Narrative Play, Stage Sex Show, and finally the Quiet and Slow Sex Education so many of us long for. This is an ode to Introversion, (loud) pauses, and letting less be.

Saturday, October 26 at 7pm

LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

By Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/they)

Directed by Adin Walker (they/them)

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

Estrella, a young trans playwright, is at a spiritual crossroads. She becomes the Old Hollywood actress Lupe Velez on the last night of her life to find the answers to her questions, and the two people who hold them are Anna May Wong and Gary Cooper, her lifetime's greatest relationships. LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS spans years in cinematic history to raise the question: what are the costs to being a queer artist of color in today's industry, and what would happen if we found a way of creating ourselves and our work outside of it?

Sunday, October 27 at 7pm

// DARE: A COLLECTION OF COMMISSIONED SCENES AND MONOLOGUES

Fo-conceived by L Morgan Lee (she/her) and George Strus (they/them)

Featuring new works by D.A. Mindell, Dillon Yruegas (he/él), Esmé Maria Ng (they/he/she), Ianne Fields Stewart (they/she), Imani Russell (they/them), Jayne Deely(they/them), Jen Silverman (they/them), Jordan Ramirez Puckett (they/them), Nikhil Mahapatra (any pronouns), Nora Brigid Monahan (she/they), Sasha Velour (she/they) and Sophie Sagan-Gutherz (they/them)

at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

Following OVERHEARD and BLISS, BTB Core Community member L Morgan Lee and Founding Artistic Director George Strus are partnering with Broadway Licensing for the third year in a row to create // DARE: A COLLECTION OF COMMISSIONED SCENES AND MONOLOGUES. The twelve commissioned works inspired by the prompt "truth // dare" will be crafted together and brought to life by a cast of five TNB2S+ performers to close the 2024 Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. The works will then be published and licensed by Broadway Licensing in 2025.