In 2024, Funds for the Dolls—an unrestricted grant for trans women of color—was launched by Theatre Communications Group (TCG)  and guided by leaders who are Trans Women of Color (TWOC). Intentionally created in response to the complex issues and barriers TWOC performing and theatre artists experience, this pilot program aimed to support these trailblazing artists and create opportunities to uplift their joy, artistry, and authenticity. With proudly aligned strategic partners, Black Trans Liberation and Transformations, this program round has provided $50,000 in funds for five grantees, with all artists who applied receiving some funds as well.

As a no-strings-attached grant, this fund provides the opportunity for the funds to be used for anything from arts funding to essential needs, gender-affirming care, and more, without the requirement to submit a traditional grant report.

Publicly announced at last year’s TCG Conference in Chicago, the Funds for the Dolls has now completed its first cycle. So it’s a good time to ask what impact this pilot program has had, and what insights we can glean from it as artists, activists, and community members, during this Pride month and beyond.

A Change in Mentality

The inaugural grantees were five TWOC performing and theatre artists whose work lives at the intersection of community organizing, social change, and art that uplifts and empowers queer and trans people. Four of those grantees are:

Alluorra Rose (she/her) is a Black Deaf trans woman whose work explores queer performance art and burlesque.

Ayo Jeriah Demps (she/they) is an actor, educator, and director who recently appeared in a queer version of Jesus Christ Superstar in Central Florida.

Venus Kii Thomas (xe/xym) is a queer Black trans writer, multidimensional artist, creativity doula-in-formation, reiki practitioner, and abolitionist. Xe recently finished up a fellowship and performance and visual art installation consisting of poetry, music, visual art composed of works from the past decade that honor xir mother.

N’yomi Stewart (she/her) is a New York City-based multidisciplinary artist and community organizer hailing from South Carolina. She is the first Black trans woman to graduate from the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts Acting program, and was the associate director of Cats: The Jellicle Ball. Outside of theatre, N’yomi is part of the NYC underground ballroom scene as a member of the Iconic House of Balenciaga.

In a roundtable conversation, each artist was asked: What has having an unrestricted fund like Funds for the Dolls meant to you?

Venus Kii Thomas: It is expensive to be a Black trans woman in the United States of America! I am grateful for funds like this! When I got my first grant, I remember every time I received and spent the money, I had a change in mentality. Knowing that there’s more after this, because I demand and command a lot of things where I have this art to create and a life to live. What this unrestricted grant has done for me—it has reminded me that my womanhood is precious. To be able to take care of things and my home, go on a vacation, and be able to have more mobility in my life? I have to have those things. These are the requirements of my dreams (and my life). My friend once told me this Bible quote, “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48). I did not understand that until I went through this healing journey for myself, and I’m very blessed as to what this grant has done. It has helped me to see the validity and more of the full vision of my dreams. It has helped me to see myself and know there’s more after this.

Ayo Jeriah Demps: Going to what Venus said, as Black women, everything is more expensive for us. If you don’t know how expensive it is to be Black in America, I have a poem called “What Is the Price of Assimilation?” that I wrote during a real rough time, getting at the cost of passing. If I were to recount all the gender-affirming care and all the things, I could buy multiple houses, cars, and college tuition!

The American beauty standards are not for us. Instead, I have found that this fund has allowed me to breathe a little bit more, experience a little bit more in my own personal fashion and expression, and has allowed for me to get into my intimacy certification. It’s not just about opening the door for me; it’s also for going into these other rooms and opening other doors for people to take ownership of their bodies and their expressions. It’s empowering me to be able to say yes and no a little bit more. I wish there were more, so I could say more yeses and more nos. It’s giving me space to do that as a Black woman, and it gave me validation that other trans women see me, what I’m doing, and see what I need; understanding that it might not be enough. But it is an acknowledgement from our community and TCG, and the fact that this is an ongoing relationship is so important. And I think that is a blessing. My late friend, Yara Williams, one of her big things that she said before passing was, “Joy is rest. It’s time for rest, and rest is revolution.”

Alluorra Rose: As a recipient of an unrestricted grant from Fund for the Dolls, this means to me a message I waited so long for: “It’s time to stop dreaming and start bringing it to life,” and that “Things will get better, just trust the process.” Receiving the grant encouraged me to really respect my craft to the fullest, because if I continue rushing my art with zero patience, my work will leave me very unsatisfied. So, I need to have patience and let the art marinate very well. Could you imagine how much I had to dream of these creative ideas, but was scared because I thought the world wouldn’t care to see me in the space of my artistry? The joy came with so much “I don’t give a damn about what you say” energy after receiving the grant. It encourages me to love the voice that I am living.

Other threads that each artist raised in our interviews were the space to learn from failure, the need to reframe narratives, exploration of new possibilities, and the question of who gets to claim, create, and walk through the doors.

Theatre Is a Pulpit

One year after its launch, unrestricted funds like For the Dolls have opened a new path forward nationally—a necessary first step to break financial barriers and create new opportunities for emerging and established trans women of color artists and beyond. It also raises the question: Where have we made progress, and where is there still work to be done?

Ayo: There was a lot of progress made when we were all locked down at home, and it didn’t cost us anything to make some progress. And a lot of that progress has backslid or was really performative and has now been forgotten about. I’m thinking specifically of Angelica Ross, T.S. Madison, Laverne Cox, and all of these trans women who are saying the things that need to be said—and not being listened to nearly as much as their counterparts who repurpose, repeat, and colonize their words.

Venus: I think, to first respond to this question, the message I’m channeling is, “Theatre is a pulpit.” Whether it is the people who read this magazine, go to Broadway, Off-Broadway, or some of the greatest theatre in the world who see it as a business, commodity, or something else—it’s always been Black women who have shown me that theatre is a pulpit.

Where I see progress is that there are more Black trans women in the theatre. Where progress needs to happen. The Black trans women that are in the theatre and the Black trans women that are going to come up in the theatre, they all need to be supported more. We all need more things leveraged down to us more. It’s expensive for us to exist. And if it’s expensive for us to exist, then it means that to tell our stories—a lot of energy. It takes a lot of dreaming; it takes a lot of grounding, and it takes a lot of spirit. To put together these stories. And deliver them on the medium that is the stage. And in order for that pulpit to be strengthened, for it to remain sacred, you gotta have us. 

Alluora: I would like for the broader American theatre landscape to know that June shouldn’t be the only time a trans woman is recognized and celebrated. Most trans women of color feel that they are not celebrated and respected during the time when they should be. Our lives as women of the trans experience shouldn’t be minimized to Pride, especially when we are living as who we are every day of the year. Lastly, one trans woman is not a body of representation for all.

We also acknowledge other areas where we need to progress are opportunities for theatres to build genuine relationships and actively seek out the work of and from TWOC artists. In addition to creating safer, more inclusive spaces, and provide sustainable funding to support TWOC artists.

As Pride comes to an end, Funds for the Dolls and its impact on these artists are reasons to celebrate, but also to take a contemplative pause and reflect on the roadblocks we have yet to remove on the path to liberation. A program like this is also, always, an invitation to take further action.

afrikah selah (they/hir) is a Boston-based multihyphenate cultural worker specializing in producorial dramaturgy, new-play development, and arts journalism.