SOFT BUTTER: A TRANS FANTASIA ON EDIBLE THEMES Will Release Album Recording

"Our ancestors. Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, but also the mothers in my family, trans activists in the 60s, anyone who hung out with Yoko Ono. Process, Undoing, Space, Transformation." This is Éamon Boylan's concoction of inspiration for Soft Butter: a trans fantasia on edible themes. The recording is set to be released on July 22nd on Spotify and iTunes and is currently available to pre-order on iTunes.

Written by Boylan, Soft Butter is many things: a postmodern theatrical poem, a trans centered musical, an ode to Gertrude Stein. Camp, expressionistic, and intimate, the piece invites audiences to taste something new in which Familiar meets Alien. It invites listeners to remember before they assume and to experience before they understand. After an extensive development through Musical Theatre Factory and the O'Neill Soft Butter premiered at the prestigious new works centered Ars Nova theatre.

The album is produced by Mika Kauffman and Theodore Teris. Kauffman began work on the project with Boylan after meeting at the Women & Trans Round Table at Musical Theatre Factory. Described as a "monthly drop-in song clinic and safe-space sharing forum," the round table is devoted to showcasing women and trans artists with 10-15 minutes of uninterrupted sharing time and the potential for feedback.

"I remember in the early stages of the piece, Éamon described Soft Butter as 'what it means to grow up trans without the language to express it.'" Kauffman said. "That resonated to the deepest levels with me. I realized that I'm non-binary and trans masc much later in life. It wasn't until I found the vocabulary and my community, the people and the artists who made room for my identity, that I could understand what was inside me and express it in a full 360° inside and out. My hope in making this story accessible, especially to trans youth, is that we provide a real perspective of what it means to grow up trans with voices that genuinely capture and express that perspective."

When asked why they write stories for and about trans people, Boylan answered "Trans identities, in all their multiplicities, have begun to model our artistic practices. To be trans is to illuminate our behavior, to see the institutions which capitalize on our behavior, exploit our behavior. To be trans is to transcend this exploitation. To be trans is to reclaim our bodies as the subjects of potential, more than the objects of deterministic culture."

The voices of Soft Butter include Boylan, L Morgan Lee (A Strange Loop), Dana Aliya Levinson (Adam, The Dress You Have On), Esco Jouléy (Runaways, Galetea) and Milo Longenecker (suck + blow, AD of Sacred Circle Theatre Company). Original orchestrations and sound featuring Luna Skye, Danny Ursetti and Jacob Jarrett. Recorded, mixed and edited by Patrick Thompson.

You can follow Soft Butter's journey on Facebook, Instagram and on their website. Illustrations by Jacob Michael.

Kauffman, Teris and Boylan are currently working on another piece to be workshopped with the Corkscrew Theater Festival entitled and Through the Crack in the Closet Door, written by Boylan. For more information, please visit the Corkscrew website.

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