THE FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL is Now On Film

For nearly two decades, The Fresh Fruit Festival, presented by All Out Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to bringing together the diverse artistic, organizational, political and financial resources of the LGBTQ community in order to fight intolerance, has celebrated the LGBTQ community's unique perspective, creativity & diversity, and to build links between the LGBTQ artistic communities, in New York, across the country and around the world.

Responding to the need for social distancing, Fresh Fruit created LGBTQ MONOLOGUES: The Ache for Home. This project is based on the Maya Angelou quote, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

Filmed solo pieces relating to the LGBTQ experience, will be presented online (dates TBA) on a high-definition platform for a set span of 1 to 2 weeks, during which the public will be free to vote for later audience choice awards. A panel of judges will also be voting on more technical criteria to help select three finalists, who will receive a cash stipend and be eligible for awards in several categories at the festival's annual award ceremony later in the season.

The line-up includes:

Nigel, Guys, and Dolls by Doug DeVita

How cold is the snow by Nathaniel Foster

Christmas Cantata by Craig Winberry

Stay as long as you like by Sebastian Timpe

One Night in Lisbon by Manuel Igrejas

Ado by olaiya olayemi

Phonecalls and Codewords by Dena Igusti

Guest of Honor by Tain Leonard-Peck

red or white by Rachel Herron

Uncovered by Sydney Haas

The event is curated by Rachel Kara Perez (she/they/Rae), an award-winning Queer, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx multidisciplinary artist/educator/adoptee-advocate who views the arts as an invaluable vehicle for healing and building community. Her work is as diverse as she is: theatre artist, vocalist, mover, writer, and poet, with work spanning multiple genres, contexts, and locales. She is the recipient of the Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship from the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) and is an EMERGENYC artist with The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

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