Curated by Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin and Gabriel Torres, PrideFest 2023 will highlight work that celebrates the queer community; addresses challenges that are faced as we strive for rights, representation and justice; and presents new ideas and perceptions on how we define ourselves individually, within our own community and in the global community at large. Whether through unity or discordance, these performances and discussions, workshops and forums, ought to shed light on the dynamic individuals and groups who make up the vibrant LGBTQIA+ community, and help us understand where we've come from, where we are and where we can go.
PrideFest2023 features:
Pansy
Written and performed by Dauris Martinez (he/him)
June 16 @ 7PM in the 98-seat theater
Pansy is a performance about the personification, embodiment and reclamation of insults. It examines rest as a radical form of freedom, healing and resistance against toxic productivity.
Erato
Curated and arranged by Jordan Rutter-Corvato (he/they)
June 16 @ 7PM & June 17 @ 9:30 PM in the 98-seat theater
A narrative concert celebrating NYC’s leather community and queer sexuality through Baroque music. Follow the journey through desire, tension and release to the joy of self-actualization - all set to the passion of the Italian Baroque. Erato will include works by Handel, Monteverdi, Legrenzi and more. Curated and arranged by Jordan Rutter-Covatto.
Trophy Boys*
By Leo Layla Díaz (they/them)
June 17 @ 7 PM & June 22 @ 7 PM in the 56-seat theater
Trophy Boys: the hit show where three transmasc contestants at different points of their transitions all compete on live television for an immediate legal name change! The contestants go through challenges, presenting their lives and memories to convince the audience to vote for them in this satirical new play reading by playwright Leo Layla Díaz and director Hannah Marie Pederson.
Truth, Dare, or Lesbian
Written and performed by Emily Drossell (she/they)
June 17 @ 9:30 PM in the 56-seat theater
One pivotal night, at a sleepover nearly two decades ago, a girl proposed a game of "truth, dare, or lesbian." Everyone agreed...and then no one chose "lesbian." Years later, former sleepover participant, Emily Drossell, is committed to realizing the game that never fully came to be. And what better way to do so than through interactive musical comedy? Ask some truths, request your dares and offer any and all interpretations of the "lesbian" option as we play a round of the always original Truth, Dare, or Lesbian!
What Love Did to Us
By Júlia Cerqueira (she/they)
June 18 @ 3 PM in the 98-seat theater
It should’ve been impossible for their paths to ever cross again. And yet: a year after the catastrophic end, Maya and Venice bump into each other (or so they think) and are forced to relive their past, confront their present and worst of all: decide their future.
DUAL SOLO BILL:
June 21 @ 7 PM in the 56-seat theater
You Don't Climb a Pepper Tree, You Go Around It
Written and performed by Chisom Awachie (she/her)
When you can’t talk to your family about work, dating or a floating glob of white supremacist bile hell-bent on consuming you, you call a great-great-aunt. This isn’t how Igbo ancestral altars work at all, but maybe she’ll hit you back before you're digested.
Coming Out to Dead People
Written and performed by Ricky Sim (he/him)
Coming Out to Dead People is a coming-of-age story that follows Ricky when he was a 19-year-old immigrant kid from Queens who had to decide whether to come out to his traditional/conservative Chinese-Malaysian mother after she's diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Ancient History
By Jonon Gansukh (he/him)
June 21 @ 7 PM & June 25 @ 3 PM in the 98 seat theater
Mongolian-American boys Kevin & Ari hide kisses behind cherry trees and seek themselves in Queer Asian stories from 2 BCE to 1925 about Emperor Ai, Princess Sun-Bin Bong and Author Nobuko Yoshiya. Travel through time with us as closeted lovers discover how to be brave, passionate, afraid and proud, directed by Michi Zaya.
Colors of Goodbye
Written and performed by Emily Aviles (she/her)
June 21 @ 9:30 PM in the 56-seat theater
Colors of Goodbye is part memoir, musical concert and color theory celebration chronicling the recovery journey of a child abuse survivor. Equally joyous and full of grief, this piece explores all the shades of healing from the lens of a synesthete who can see colors within music, people and relationships.
NachmoX: OUT LOUD!
By Stephen Hill
June 22 @ 7 PM in the 98-seat theater
NachmoX: OUT LOUD! is a condensed choreographic kick in the pants. Choreographers will be able to sign up to participate with their own dancers or can opt to be matched with dancers. They will be given a week to choreograph a new dance piece based on a prompt from a professional outside the dance world. The prompt for this event will be based on the following quote by Marsha P. Johnson: “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
DUAL BILL:
June 23 @ 7 PM in the 56-seat theater
Undefeated
By Aliya Hunter (she/her/hers)
Undefeated follows Aliya, the wrestling star of the evening, as she enters and coolly takes care of her first two opponents: a seventh-grade boy and a botched college hookup. But something is increasingly off-kilter about these matches that Aliya cannot avoid. When a third, unwelcome and unexpected memory enters who is seemingly impossible to beat, the pro-wrestling match subtly turns into an embodiment of sexual assault survivorship. Through heart-pounding action, cathartic dance breaks and care, Aliya leads the audience through a journey of ass-kicking acceptance and a joyful celebration of all of who we are.
AMA
Written and performed by Kenneth Keng (any pronouns)
Ask me anything but it's my grandma asking and the audience answering and also she's dying and also my country is about to be invaded for the second time this century.
HOLD YR TERROR CLOSE
By Ella Baldwin (she/her)
June 23 @ 7 PM & June 24 @ 9:30 PM in the 98-seat theater
HOLD YR TERROR CLOSE follows Ohio, a queer popstar who is called into space to save the world and leave behind her loving and level-headed partner, Maria. A queer, genre-bending one act exploring fame, privacy, apocalypse and how to embrace the wickedly dangerous subliminal space of profound and intimate love.
Don't Think About Elephants*
By Ashley Lauren Rogers (she/they)
June 24 @ 3PM in the 98-seat theater
When Emily's pregnancy test turns out positive, she and her sister-in-law, Brittany, go on a road trip to get her checked out and basic information at a Planned Parenthood clinic, even though the two of them despise each other.
Echo & Narcissus Blast Third Eye Blind Outside a Diner in New Jersey at 2AM*
By Brandon Monokian (he/they)
June 25 @ 3PM in the 56-seat theater
In 1999, two teenage boys deal with their closeted sexuality and a violent incident that will change them both forever. In 2012 and beyond, we see how the scars of their past define their present and future. A reading of a new play by Brandon Monokian and directed by Jeremy Crittenden with live music from Sam Kwietniak.
TRIPLE SOLO BILL:
June 25 @ 7 PM in the 56-seat theater
FYP
Written and performed by Adin Lenahan (they/them)
FYP is a solo show that takes the performance-of-self we practice on social media and contorts it through the abstraction of voice and movement. An endless parade of contrasting voices ranging from Disney Adults to dying teenagers to ghost-hunting surfers to true crime enthusiasts to viral dancers to ASMR Reiki practitioners to Nicole Kidman all speak in no more than one-minute intervals and converge to tell a story about nothing (but nothing is ever about nothing).
In the Elvis Mirror
Written and performed by Stephen Dym (he/him)
In the Elvis Mirror is the personal reflection of a young boy growing up in the Bronx and sharing a room and an unusually close relationship with his teenage sister in the 1950s and 60s. This play explores sexual and gender development, queer consciousness, bi and pan sexuality.
Doll Valley
Written and performed by Scout Davis (they/them)
Doll Valley is a meditation on a cornerstone of iconic queer camp pop culture endowed with the mythic tale of women attempting to navigate concepts of gaze and authorship in a volatile field/industry. This meditation takes the shape of a long form lip-sync in which Scout as embodies a small group of performers giving a cold reading of the original book in a basement rehearsal studio in the midst of the winter of 2020 at a prestigious conservatory. This is paired with recorded audio from that very reading.
*Denotes a reading.
