Bloom: A Collection of New Queer Voices Will Be Presented by Stay True, An LGBTQ+ Theatre Company

Stay True, An LGBTQ+ Theatre Company presents their first annual Bloom: A Collection of New Queer Voices, In Memory of Timothy Conigrave. Bloom is a collection of new works written by playwrights in the LGBTQIA+ community. The collection will be presented in a series of three virtual readings this weekend streamed on Stay True's official Youtube channel @StayTrueTheatreCompany.

Girl: A Gender Expression will stream on Friday, June 11 at 7:30 PM EST, written by Ezra Brain and directed by Drewe Goldstein. The cast features Ryan Albinus, Carmen Castillo, Bailey Elis, C McCabe, and Henri Sudy.

An experimental exploration of gender from a very subjective point-of-view. Girl seeks to explore the political, social, and professional experiences of being not just a trans person but a specific trans person. Mixing dialogue, speeches, dance sequences, and everything in between, Girl is a radical demand for specificity, self-acceptance, and a deconstruction of the traditional ways that plays are created that attempts to shock, enrage, comfort, and challenge its audience. And maybe it's also funny?

Moon Bear will stream on Saturday, June 12 at 7:30 PM EST, written by Nina Ki and directed by Ashley Renee Thaxton-Stevenson. The cast features Vanessa Agovida, Kevin Chew, Sunny Choi, Matthew Menendez, Phoenix Na, Sarah Shin, and Chris Villanueva.

In the human world, two young siblings who have recently lost their mother search for family and belonging in a world where both are elusive and often misleading. Meanwhile, in the god world, Bear and Tiger seek to pass a rigorous test to become human - but find the results not quite as expected. Moon Bear combines the real with the fantastical, proving that sometimes the family you need is the one you never saw coming

Baruch Hashem will stream on Sunday, June 13 at 3:00 PM EST, written by Josh Levine and directed by Melissa Firlit. The cast features Brett Bainer, Katherine Benitez, Robert Donahue, Dennis Elkins, Synge Maher, Sarah Parks, and Jessica Toltzis.

A humorous family drama that explores what happens when a conflict over religious beliefs causes a rift in a tight-knit Jewish family and how that trauma resonates twenty-five years into the future.

Stay True Founding Artistic Director Andrew Victor Myers states, "I am so delighted that Stay True has curated this collection of new works written by playwrights in the LGBTQIA+ community. This has been one of my personal goals and visions since founding Stay True in the summer of 2019. To be dedicating this to the memory of Timothy Conigrave makes my heart soar. Producing the stage adaptation of his memoir, Holding The Man, was the project that started Stay True. He, like many of his generation globally, responded to his own HIV diagnosis as a call to community. Timothy dedicated himself to theatre, activism, storytelling, and care for our entire community .This is a fitting tribute to his ongoing legacy"

The creative team for the production includes Andrew Victor Myers (Stay True's Founding Artistic Director), Anne Karyna Bakan (Stay True's Associate Artistic Director), Aoife Hough (Workshop Manager), Ryan Arthur (Stay True's Artistic Assistant) and Hsi-An Chen (Graphic Designer).

Tickets for the readings are $10.00 individually or for all three readings $28.00, a viewing link will be emailed to viewers the day of the readings. Tickets can be purchased at staytruetheatrecompany.ticketleap.com

Previous productions from Stay True, An LGBTQ+ Theatre Company include Craig Donnelly's Adam & Brian (Stay True's Debut Production, November 2019), Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing (A Virtual Reading, August 2020), and Make The Yuletide Gay! (A Virtual Holiday Cabaret, December 2020)

Future productions from Stay True's 2021-2022 Season include Cupid & Psyche An Audioplay, later this summer, a Holiday show in Winter 2021, Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing (a fully stage production inspired by the 2020 reading) in February 2022, and another Bloom Collection in April 2022.

At Stay True, we pride ourselves on creating, producing, and performing pieces of theatre by, for, and with the LGBTQ+ community. We believe in staying true to who we are and expressing that through the arts opens the doors to understanding, acceptance, and community.

For more content and information follow Stay True on Facebook & Instagram @staytruetheatre or visit staytruetheatre.com.

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