CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: The Theater Offensive (TTO), Boston’s cultural organization for queer and trans people of color (QTBIPOC), marks the culmination of TTO’s nearly two-year Emergent Artist Residency and True Colors Residency programs with the inaugural Queer [Re]Public Festival, a groundbreaking four-day celebration of art and performance by and about queer and trans artists of color. Rooted in TTO’s mission to use performance as a tool for liberation and community-building, the Queer [Re]Public Festival is the next evolution in its commitment to uplift QTBIPOC voices and dismantle systems of oppression through transformative and transgressive new work. It will take place June 26-29 at Arrow Street Arts in Cambridge.
“Queer [Re]Public is a bold, joyful declaration of everything we believe theatre can be,” Des Bennett, TTO’s Queer [Re]public programs manager, said in a statement. “From aerial dance storytelling to Afro-Indigenous music-infused readings, interactive workshops, and powerful artist conversations, this festival is about more than performance. It’s about amplifying the work of queer and trans BIPOC artists in all their intersectional brilliance. We’re honoring the artistry that’s transforming our stages, launching a civic platform rooted in liberation, and acknowledging Greater Boston’s LGBTQ+ arts sector as a national force for innovation. This is theatre redefined—and a call to action.”
The festival is anchored by three artistic projects. Dance artist/choreographer Victoria Lynn Awkward will present a full-scale aerial dance and movement-based production, In the Space Between, a choreographic ritual rooted in Audre Lorde’s vision of the erotic as power, an offering of beauty, joy, and collective transformation. It was developed with Awkward’s longtime collaborators—including music director Desiré Graham, rehearsal director Sasha Peterson, and composer Eden Girma (also known as aden)—and features an original score and immersive design by Ian Andrew Askew, Cheyanne Williams, Itohan Edoloyi, and James Gibbel.
Playwright/composer Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones will receive a staged reading with live music of their intimate coming-of-age play at The Messenger, first commissioned by 5th Avenue Theatre and further developed through TTO’s Emergent Artist Residency. It is about a young femme named Zanyah who has been chosen to become the next Messenger for her nation, known as The In-Between.
True Colors resident artist Annalise “River” Guidry will present three offerings during the festival: a public “table talk,” an immersive labyrinthine workshop focused on personal stories, and a devised performance featuring the inaugural Theater of Union artist cohort. It’s a multi-part participatory world-building performance and pedagogy event, converging story, ritual, and community-building. Developed over three years in the Queer [Re]Public residency and rooted in anthropological theory and Indigenous knowledge systems, Theater of Union aims to dismantle systems of domination and envisions a life-sustaining future through ancestral memory, collective healing, and interconnectedness.
The festival’s final day will include a panel conversation in partnership with Boston’s BAMS Festival, “The Audacity of Being Yourself,” with Grammy nominees Durand Bernarr and Diovanna Frazier, who will join Victoria Lynn Awkward to explore how artists living at the margins resist oppression, reclaim their voices, and inspire transformation through creativity. This raw and resonant dialogue will celebrate the courage to defy convention, the resilience to imagine new futures, and the power of truth-telling in the face of adversity.
The Theater Offensive (TTO) is a Boston-based organization that presents liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color. TTO engages communities in collective expression and builds bridges across differences through the transformative power of performance. Since 1989, The Theater Offensive has been a home for QTPOC expression, visibility, and joy.
