BOSTON: The Theater Offensive (TTO) has announced the lineup for Beyond the Stage, the company’s annual fundraiser. TTO will celebrate the 25th anniversary of True Colors OUT Youth Theater, Boston’s only LGBTQ youth theatre program, and announce its first national tour.  The Beyond the Stage fundraiser will take place on March 12 at Boston’s District Hall,  where attendees are invited to meet the True Colors OUT Youth Theater members.

At the event, local philanthropist and activist Myron Miller and True Colors Troupe alumnus Chioke Waithe-Howard will be recognized for their support of the program over the years. Miller is the trustee of the Herman and Frieda L. Miller Foundation, a charitable foundation with the mission to empower disadvantaged communities in Boston and throughout Massachusetts. Waithe-Howard started as a True Colors member in 2010, and has since become an integral part of the growth and development of True Colors programming.

Looking forward to the 2020-21 season, True Colors will take the new work Legends, Statements, and Stars on the road—a first for the group founded in 1994. The play centers around the coming of age stories of LGBTQ people of color in the United States, exploring their battle with identity politics as they try to create their own identity and culture outside of the mainstream culture.

Legends, Statements, and Stars is a National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network Creation and Development Fund Project co-commissioned by ArtsEmerson in Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, and Legion Arts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

True Colors uses a community-engaged theatre model to train LGBTQ and allied youth leaders, the majority of whom are ages 14-22 and from Boston neighborhoods, in writing and performance skills. The group, founded in 1994, was awarded the National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award by Michelle Obama in 2016, making them the first LGBTQ youth theatre program to receive the award at a White House ceremony.

Founded in 1989, the Theater Offensive uses theatre and the creative process to liberate queer and trans people of color by deconstructing oppressive practices and policies.