Founding inventive director George Strus has introduced the launch of Breaking the Binary Theatre, a nonprofit group devoted to new work growth and community-building for transgender, nonbinary and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) people. The group is dedicated to a year-round effort to current theater by and for TNB2S+ artists.
TNB2S+ people are outlined by the group, per its web site, as “any one that doesn’t correspond with the female and male binary and is transgender, non-binary, Two-Spirit, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, Agender, gender expansive, bigender, gender fluid or in any other case lives exterior of the cisnormative gender binary.”.
The information comes on the heels of the inaugural Breaking the Binary Theater Pageant, which was held in October of 2022. The competition happened at Theater Row and featured eight studying displays. This yr’s competition will run Oct. 23 – 30, 2023, at a venue to be introduced. Submissions for the competition are actually open by way of March 12.
A number of Broadway notables have labored with the group in numerous capacities, together with L Morgan Lee, Adam Chanler-Berat and Justin David Sullivan, all of whom carried out in a December 2022 week-long workshop of Shualee Prepare dinner’s “Cercle Hermaphroditos,” which Lee additionally directed .
Breaking the Binary Theater is ready to start a number of new initiatives along with its annual competition. The BTB New Works Program will present developmental readings and workshops for brand spanking new work by TNB2S+ artists; the 2023 Falco and Steinman BTB Residency Program will sponsor two artists to attend the New Roots Queer Residency at Walhalla Farms; and the BTB Commissioning Program, which is able to award $10,000 to a commissioned artist to develop a brand new work.
A handful of Broadway neighborhood members serve on BTB’s voluntary advisory board — often known as the Core Group — together with scenic designer Adam Rigg, actor-writer John Cameron Mitchell, actor Tomás Matos and actor-writer Ty Defoe, amongst others.
Producer Daryl Roth is amongst BTB’s founders, whereas producers Jordan Roth and Richie Jackson are amongst new supporters.
“Following the optimistic response of final October’s Pageant, the urgency for an area like Breaking the Binary continued to develop because the longstanding historical past of TNB2S+ artists being misrepresented and underpaid for his or her work within the American theater assertion continued,” Strus mentioned in an announcement. “As we develop, we proceed to rectify this head-on by holistically centering TNB2S+ artists and their visions, all of the whereas nonetheless compensating every artist equitably (with all hourly wages primarily based upon New York’s Dwelling Wage).”
