ICONS: Two Historic LGBTQ Individuals Put On Stage At The Sargent Theatre of the American Theatre of Actors

Playwright Carolyn M. Brown will present STORMÉ and Playwright Bernard Taylor present JOHN STILLWAGGON as Tennessee Williams. Running May 26 - June 15 at The Sargent Theatre of the American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th St. New York City

STORMÉ

It took one punch to start a gay revolution. It took one gender-bending lesbian to throw that punch. Stormé DeLarverie is revered for throwing the first punch-or series of punches-at police during the now infamous 1969 raid at NYC's Stonewall Inn. Much like Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955 played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement, Stormé's scuffle with the NYPD in 1969 during a raid at the Stonewall Inn was a watershed moment for Gay Rights.

Stormé's journey begins in New Orleans as a child of mixed race, learning to fight for herself and for her identity. While performing in Chicago with big bands as a singer under the stage name Stormy Dale. She teams up with Danny Brown, proprietor of the Jewel Box Revue (America's first racially integrated and gay-owned drag show) and performs as emcee and male impersonator Stormé DeLarverie.

Stormé' - along with her extended family and friends - exist under constant threat from the NYPD (who harass and arrest cross-dressers under the guise of masquerade laws and any gays gathering in bars under ban by the NY State Liquor Authority) until that fateful day in June of 1969, when she had enough of being under everyone's thumb.

Playwright Carolyn M. Brown is a journalist, editor, author, playwright, and producer. She is the principal of True Colors Project, a social enterprise whose mission is to produce performing arts that educate, entertain and empower audiences. She Co-Founded My True Colors Festival: Fighting For Social Justice and Cultural Diversity Through The Arts and currently serves as a Board Director of All Out Arts/Fresh Fruit Festival: Fighting Prejudice Through The Arts. Carolyn was one of the youngest artists to have a staged reading at the Schomburg Center in Harlem with her play "Accessories." As a queer Black woman, she takes great pride in being a GLAAD Media Award-winning journalist whose in-depth writings about the lives of marginalized people in America have been integral to creating a media environment where LGBTQ+ people of color feel visible, affirmed, and celebrated. STORMÉ is a pivotal moment in speaking her truth

Tennessee Williams: PORTRAIT OF A GAY ICON: a one man play about the playwright Tennessee Williams.

PLOT: Williams is on a lecture tour and becomes increasingly inebriated during the course of the lecture, eventually walking out after insulting his audience. The play had a wildly successful try-out in San Antonio and now the play comes to New York with John Stillwaggon playing Tennessee Williams.

Stillwaggon has been a member of the theatre community for more than 12 years. He has participated in Off & Off-Off-Broadway theater as well as national tours with the Magik Theater in San Antonio. In 2011, ReviewFix named him one of the top 10 off-off Broadway professionals in New York City. Stillwaggon's acumen runs the gamut from classical (the titular role in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet) to new works like Christina Hemphill's A Symphony for Portland (off-Broadway premiere)

Playwright Bernard J. Taylor has had more than 100 worldwide productions of his shows - both musicals and non-musical plays - in more than a dozen countries. His early works were chronicled in the Encyclopedia of Film and Stage Music. In 2013, he was made an Honorary Fellow by the Victoria College of Music and Drama for "services to music and the performing arts." Recent years have been the most prolific creative period he has known. Six productions of his stage work in San Antonio won eleven awards at the 2015, 2016 and 2017 ATAC awards (San Antonio's version of New York's Tony Awards).