To Know & Follow An ever-expanding list of LGBTQ+ theater artists of color and their social media handles. Keep an eye on these artists and the phenomenal work they're doing on and off the stage.
A weekly podcast, along with articles and essays, by journalist/critic/editor Diep Tran and critic Jose Solís about theatre and other forms of art, focusing on "the viewpoints of creators who don’t get enough love in the mainstream."
Usher is a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. Michael R. Jackson’s blistering, momentous new musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons — not least of which, the punishing thoughts in his own head — in an attempt to capture and understand his own strange loop.
Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Strange Loop.
Off Book is a theatre podcast made with black theatre artists’ interests & issues in mind, hosted by Donja R. Love, Amber Iman and Drew Shade and brought to you by Broadway Black. The podcast is currently on hiatus due to the pandemic but past episodes are available to stream.
Dramatist/artist Sharon Bridgforth speaks with artists whose work is rooted in social justice about their experiences growing up, cultures, and traditions, and how that shapes their artistic practices, vision and community activism.
Read Playbill: Queer Black Playwrights to Know and Support
"We’ve always needed to uplift these voices and hear these stories, but with the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests intersecting with Pride month, there is a renewed sense of urgency. The queer Black stories are here, the queer Black artists are ready—they’ve been ready—and now is the time for theatre as an institution to truly listen, to practice radical empathy, and to realize that universal lessons can be received from the specificity of these stories."
Playbill has compiled a list of queer Black playwrights who center queerness, Blackness, and queer Blackness in their work, with additional information on their works, their artistic practices, and how you can support them.
In celebration of Pride month, Playbill helped to present Pride Plays 2020, a festival featuring four primetime live streams of key LGBTQIA+ plays. The festival culminated in Playbill's Pride Spectacular, a musical celebration. Since the festival was virtual, Playbill created a digital playbill with articles about the plays and interviews with the creators. (Note that the digital playbill may not work on Chrome.)
What does Pride mean to you? Timothy Hughes, T. Oliver Reid, Jessie Shelton, Anthony Chatmon, Ahmad Simmons, Tom Kirdahy, and Cherie B. Tay, all LGBTQIA+ members of the Hadestown Broadway cast and crew, joined together for a virtual Pride roundtable on that question.
"Where Does Your Soul Live?" - Patricia Ione Lloyd
Playwright Patricia Ione Lloyd gave this talk at TEDxBroadway in 2018.
When live theater returns and we return to live theater, here are just a few of many shows to check out:
My H8 Letter To The Gr8 American Theatre by Diana Oh
Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris
Interstate by Kit Yan & Melissa Li
Bootycandy by Robert O'Hara
Any of the events held by Musical Theatre Factory, including salons, Representation Roundtables, 4x15, and more.
Support & Follow
Black Trans Femmes in the Arts (@BTFACollective) A collective of Black trans femmes dedicated to creating space for themselves in the arts and beyond.
Broadway Advocacy Coalition (@BwayAdvocacy) Founded in 2016 by members of the Broadway community as a direct response to the nation's pandemic of racism and police brutality, the BAC is a multi-disciplinary organization uniting artists with legal experts and community leaders to have a lasting impact on policy issues including criminal justice reform, education equity, and immigration.
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids (@bcefa) Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS helps men, women and children across the country and across the street receive lifesaving medications, health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance.
Musical Theatre Factory (@MTFMusicals) MTF is a nonprofit arts service organization dedicated to developing musical theatre artists from diverse backgrounds and marginalized communities and centering work that dismantles oppressive ideologies towards collective liberation through story and song.
National Queer Theater (@NationalQueerTheater) National Queer Theater is a nonprofit arts organization based in NYC that aims to foster and support LGBTQ communities through social justice in the performing arts.
The Okra Project (@TheOkraProject) The Okra Project is a collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black Trans people by bringing home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People at no cost.
Theater of the Oppressed (@ForumTheatreNYC) Theatre of the Oppressed NYC partners with community members at local organizations to form theatre troupes. These troupes devise and perform plays based on their challenges confronting economic inequality, racism, and other social, health and human rights injustices. After each performance, actors and audiences engage in theatrical brainstorming – called Forum Theatre – with the aim of catalyzing creative change on the individual, community, and political levels.
Trans Lab (@TransLabTheater) Trans Lab is a NYC-based fellowship for trans and gender non-conforming theater artists. The lab also supports TGNC directors to counter the underrepresentation of these artists in the theater industry.
