Annual Breaking the Binary Theater Festival Announces Programming

Programming has been revealed for the third annual Breaking the Binary Theater Festival. Held October 21 – 27 at Playwrights Horizons’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, the festival will highlight works created and developed by transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) theater artists.

This year’s lineup, presenting one work per day, will begin on October 21 with Noax and George Strus’ Truth II: An Interdisciplinary Variety Show. This special opening performance will showcase the talents of twelve stellar TNB2S+ artists through acts of various disciplines: vocalists, drag artists, comedians, and more. 

Next, on October 22 will be Nissy Aya’s Prunin, Hoein, N Cuttin Grapes, which centers on a community of femmes assigned to teach the tools of sexual pleasure to others. On October 23, Yaffa AS will present Harvest Olives: A Collective Improvisation, a work drawing from their books of writing and poetry as a trans Palestinian death worker and community organizer. MJ Kaufman’s play Fireside Dances will be presented on October 24, following 16 year old Em, who has decided to move from a farm in rural Oregon to Portland, where she will stay with distant relatives: lesbian moms Greta and Annie and their daughter, causing cultures to clash between rural and urban queer lifestyles.

Kicking off the weekend on October 25 will be Zaza Diana Oh’s interdisciplinary play A Rare Bird, which explores live physical intimacy in what could be described as “the birth of a new genre of slow porn.” Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel’s Lupe Finds Me in the Garden of Dreams will be presented October 26, centering on a young trans playwright who suddenly embodies the Old Hollywood actress Lupe Velez.

Closing out the festival on October 27 will be Dare: A Collection of Comissioned Scenes and Monologues, co-concieved by L Morgan Lee and George Strus. The series will feature new works by D.A. Mindell, Dillon Yruegas, Esmé Maria Ng, Ianne Fields Stewart (they/she), Imani Russell, Jayne Deely, Jen Silverman, Jordan Ramirez Puckett, Nikhil Mahapatra, Nora Brigid Monahan, Sasha Velour and Sophie Sagan-Gutherz.

For more information on the festival, visit www.btb-nyc.com.