2025 cloud nIne ZINE
Table of Contents
AriNotartomaso
AzureD.Osborne-Lee
Bazeed
D.A.Mindell
FutabaShioda
GarnetWilliams
JayneDeely
JustinDavidSullivan
MobéyLolaIrizarry
TristanWillis
2024 Commisions
2023 Commisions
AboutBTB
About Cloud Nine Zine
CLOUD NINE: <a feeling of well-being or elation.= Cloud Nine Zine is a yearly online publication featuring commissioned works by more than 30 transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) artists in celebration of International Transgender Day of Visibility. Presented by Breaking the Binary Theatre, the zine is available to view at btb-nyc.com/cloud-nine-zine. Welcome to Cloud Nine.
Meet Our Designer
VI DANG (they/she) is a performer, musician, and creative based in New York City. Originally from Denver, they graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a B.A. in Musical Theatre and a Minor in Music. She is also a part of the editorial team at Playbill and her graphic work, photography, and writing has been published in Playbill magazine, Time Out New York, the Tony Awards, and internationally in the Scotsman.
As a queer first generation American, Vi is proud of her Vietnamese heritage and strives to spread Asian/BIPOC representation in the theatre/entertainment industry, as well as create art that elevates trans & non-binary voices.
She’s grateful to be a BTB artist, and is inspired by everybody in this creative community.
HEATHER GERSHONOWITZ
2025 COMMISSIONS
Ari Notartomaso
(they/he)
Ari Notartomaso
most known for their acting, singing, and increasingly, fiber arts. Ari recently made their NY theatre debut with Encores! acclaimed production of <Cynthia= in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies Film: Mean Girls the Musical Activity: Next of Kin Theatre Festival Cabaret, Premiere).
A 2.5x3.5ft knitted tapestry containing nimbostratus clouds weeping glass tears. Each pendant holds the faces and names of Trans individuals murdered from August 2022-present. Below the grieving cloud in a puddle of rain are the words 'WE LOVE YOU WE NEED YOU WE MISS YOU WE GRIEVE YOU' in alternating colors of the transgender flag.
<It's a common misconception that clouds are just water vapor. If that were the case, they would be invisible and shapeless. They are, in fact, crystalized water droplets and solid ice, accumulating in millions of pounds of material suspended above our heads. Trans people are given a similar narrative. We are said to be something that does not and cannot exist, and yet are the targets of overwhelming violence and political attack. We are often said to be a new and fabricated group, and yet evidence of us exists across all of human history, with intersecting identities and cultures. Like this particular water cycle, we hold shape: suspended above and outside the rigid colonial constructs of gender that aim to eradicate us.
It is through a process of heating and cooling evaporated water from the surface of the earth, that clouds rise and appear in our atmosphere. They collect and welcome new manifestations of their form; ice, vapor, droplets, microbial life, dust particles, etc.. Over time, the weight of holding so much, with the change of the atmosphere around it, results in rain storms. We queer and trans people hold inside us; the contradiction of being both invisible and singled out. We hold inside us the immense love for ourselves and each other, immense capacity for change and growth, as well as the unbearable weight of grief from watching each other be killed by and suffer from oppression. It should crush us. But like clouds, which often hold rivers worth of water in the sky, we release the burden of our anguish in beautiful, life-giving droplets, which fall to the ground and water the earth and the people we love.
In making this project over the course of 10 days, I became aware that my intent to include all murdered trans and nonbinary individuals from 2020-present would not be possible. There were simply too many. I held onto the tiny faces of whole human beings in my hands and sobbed. I had spent hours making each person a drop of water, literally on this tapestry and literally in my body. The love I have for trans and gender non-conforming people is so vast. The grief I have for each beautiful life taken is incomprehensible. And the gratitude I have to everyone at BTB who have again given trans artists and performers the space and funds to create something we need to create is endless.
Special thanks to my spectacular partner Sunni Day for helping me put this all together, you are a gift and a marvel. I love you I love you I love you.=
Azure D. Osbor
(he/they)
Azure D. Osborne-Lee award-winning Black queer & trans theatre maker from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his tuxedo cat Cream Cheez. Azure holds an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice (2011) from Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, as well as an MA in Women’s & Gender Studies (2008) and a BA in English & Spanish (2005) from The University of Texas at Austin. Azure is passionate about creating real access and equity in the arts, and their work centers Black queer, trans, and disabled folks. Keep up with Azure at azureosbornelee.com
Bazeed
(they/them)
Bazeed is a multi–award winning Egyptian immigrant, playwright, poet, performer, plant-dad, editor, curator, masticator, medical school dropout, licensed massage therapist, and very decent cook, living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres is published in print and online, while their plays have been performed on both sides of the Atlantic.
To procrastinate from facing the blank page, Bazeed talks to the multitudes of plants they maintain in their Brooklyn hermitage, and is a slow student of Arabic music.
The Body Oblique by Bazeed
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Listenalong
<I wrote The Body Oblique in response to my own ambivalent feelings regarding making my transness more material to myself and others through medical means. The piece was occasioned by my seeing my face masculinized and bearded thanks to—of all things!—an Instagram filter, and experiencing a deep feeling of recognition of and identification with these machine-generated pixels. This poem attempts to hold, simultaneously, my love and desire for that pixelated body, with its widened forehead, widened jawline, and really quite gorgeous beard; and my desire to love my body as it is and as I've grown to know it, without culture's context about/meddling in what this shell should, or could, mean.=
D.A. Mindell
(he/him)
is a playwright and educator who aims to contribute to a canonfortransgenderartiststoexplore the breadth and depth of opportunity that cis artists have been able to pursue for centuries. His play On the Evolutionary Function of Shame made its Off-Broadway debut February 2025 with Second Stage, following its inclusion as a reading in their 2024 NextStageFestival.Recentrecognition includes participation in the 2024 Commission for Breaking the Binary Theatre, First Kiss Theatre's Summer 2024 Residency, and the 2023 FairPlayInitiativeCommissionthrough
They've submitted their requests to change their gender markers on their passports. Now all there is to do is wait. And maybe play hangman.
<I'm not an absurdist, but when the world is absurd, what is there to do but be absurd right back at it?= -D.A. Mindell
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Futaba Shioda
(he/him)
Futaba Shioda is an actor of transgender and Asian Diaspora experience and the winner of an Obie and a Paul Robeson Award for his work bridging art and advocacy. Select Theater Credits: Gerd in A Transparent Musical (Center Theatre Group), Clown in The 39 Steps (Rep Theatre of St. Louis), Galatea in Galatea (WP Theater), NoFi in BLUSH (SoHo Rep), Molly (u/s) in A Little More Alive (Barrington Stage Company), Alexi Darling/Swing in RENT (20th Anniv. Tour). Film: Therapist Crush, Sideways Smile. Voice Over: Kennedy Center for Young Audiences, Spotify’s Raise Your Voice.
futabashioda.com
Futaba Shioda
Kintsugi on Torso (2025)
Crayon, colored pencil, acrylic paint on 22= x 28= watercolor paper
Kintsugi, meaning <golden repair,= is a Japanese art form where golden lacquer is used to piece together broken pottery to highlight and celebrate the object’s history and <flaws.= By applying this philosophy onto gender affirming medical procedures, Kintsugi on Torso depicts surgical scars as triumphant, rather than shameful, things that can complete and beautify a body. This reclamation counters the increasingly volatile campaign against transgender and non-binary bodies and ongoing misconceptions that stigmatize trans medical intervention as <mutilation.= Additionally, by using a distinctly Eastern form to celebrate transness, the piece defies the assumption that transness is a Western invention, or that Western American portrayals of gender is the standard for all trans and non-binary folks. Top surgery scars, often associated with transmasculine bodies, are reimagined in the kintsugi form on a torso resembling an Ancient Greek bust, famously known to define the Western <ideal male body.= Using this approach, the trans experience becomes the very disruption, rather than continuation of, white, Western gender ideals. Framed within the <Cloud Nine= theme, the torso is nestled among clouds loosely drawn in the Chinese-inspired, Japanese art style popular during the Edo Period. The clouds historically symbolize impermanence and change - meaningful themes for many transgender and non-binary individuals.
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Garnet Williams
(she/they)
Garnet Williams is a writer, an Obie Award Winning Actor, and singer originally from Atlanta, Georgia. Their work is committed to finding the most mundane of human moments in the strangest for times. As an actor some of her favorite roles in include Bombalurina in Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Nina Simone in Nina Simone: Four Women, and Pythio in Head Over Heels. She is currently working on her newest draft of her play Insignificant Other All she does is for Lucile.
Off Cloud 9
by Garnet Williams
<When you head for Cloud 9 are you running towards something or away from something? Either is a valid answer, but it tells me where your eyes are locked. And if you can hit the goal what was the price? Was it something shiny or something that went without a sound? No matter what thing is running across the back of your mind at the question, you’re staring down the barrel of the choice. The only thing left is the after.=
-Garnet Williams
Jayne Deely (they/them)
Jayne Deely is a Queens, NY born and bred queer playwright, writing about gray area, lingering Catholicism, and women’s basketball. 2025 Venturous Award Nominee, O’Neill Finalist, La Jolla Latinx New Play Festival Selection, Distillery New Works FestivalSelection,TerrenceMcNallyNewPlay IncubatorSemi-Finalist,andRelentlessAward Honorable Mention, for I never asked for a gofundme. Jayne’s work has been developed with Breaking the Binary, Fresh Ground Pepper, the New Harmony Project, KCACTF, American Stage, and Renaissance Theatreworks, among others. They are a recent recipient of an EST Alfred P. Sloan grant. MFA, Indiana University Bloomington. www.jaynedeely.com
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<When I first tried to interface with the prompt of 8Cloud 9 – a feeling of wellness or elation,9 I felt at a loss. Actually, I felt angry at the sheer proposal of digging into such a feeling; it felt cruel to ask myself to fall into such a fantasy, only to have to return to a real world in which our very existence is called into question and our very real lives used as political pawns. So I turned to those who have come before me and realized that radical imagination is a tool that social justice leaders have actively been using for years to shape what9s possible and envision new stories. I realized that maybe it is this act of imagination, imagining something beyond, something different than this, that could be crucial to that world being possible. If we can9t imagine it, we cannot create it. But how to do that while staying connected to the world we do live in? Sitting with this, this is the play I offer you.=
-Jayne Deely
Justin David Sullivan is a proud Mexicasian trans non-binary singer, actor, and artist based in New York City. Justin originated the role of May in the critically acclaimed pop-hit Broadway musical & Juliet.
Transcendence
by Justin David Sullivan
<An inward exploration of how cloud nine might be reached through self acceptance. A discovery of the cocoon of ideals and expectations that wrap us in guilt, fear, and shame and the inescapable truth that sets us free.=
-Justin David Sullivan
Mobéy Lola Irizarry
(they/she)
Mobéy Lola Irizarry is a genderqueer cultural worker in the realms of Salsa, Bomba, poetry, and transdisciplinary performance. Based in Brooklyn, they hail from the Puerto Rican diaspora in Hartford, CT, and are a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. They make within the lineages of decolonial uprisings, collections of tiny mirrors at queer clubs, and the precolonial languages of the drum and the braid. Lola is the creative director and conguere for Las Mariquitas, NYC’s Queer and Trans Salsa band. They play in the experimental performance trio Dendarry Bakery, the duo Tó Ara, and the Latin Rock group AVATAREDEN. They compose for Samora La Perdida’s Spanglish Sh!t musical and are an alumnus of EMERGENYC. Lola is quoted in Rolling Stone saying <I want to abolish patriarchy in Salsa… this is a duty to our lineage.=
a Two-Spirit love letter to mi Tambó
by Mobéy Lola Irizarry
Somewhere between the memory of a goat’s pulse, the pulse of the earth, and my own pulse, is the song we learned to love the diasporican cimarrón,
estradiol breasts dancing piquetes on our redobles, curls and braids and bamboo earrings chanting land back bendiciones.
(loot back)
Listen along
this drum is made of Lenape wood so that it don’t crack in a winter time Batey, she and the reparations-oriented machete-wielder are a mix of parts, lands, and technologies
thought to be one side of everything we were told was two sided (the drummer the dancer) (the man the woman)
(the barbed-wire incisions on nature’s fluidity)
really they / she / we is the sacred in-between birds and weather patterns and open tones crossing what humans cannot. wood on hide offering dance to our altar-bound relatives, propelling signals to whichever farthest mountain will hear our message;;; diss PLACE ing air, as the mordaza fights to keep us air tight.
(llegó la hora. dale fuego)
we are word of a disappeared freedom fighter still ringing in your ears.
(yo no vine a matar a nadie, vine a morir por... ti)
many have died on our path, all will. as our songs and sacred steps remain,
Long after our grieving hymns stop dying far away, as destiny laughs at our terrible nostalgia, Long after the sad caravan of memory no longer makes stops at our collective consciousness, Long after greed’s fight to kill the earth is lost, and we are no longer forced to love like repurpose machetes,
I will still love you, when love need only be pulse and dirt under fingernails, and you will love me back.
Tristan B Willis
Cloud Nine is a <feeling of well-being or elation= (at least, according to Merriam-Webster). Last year, in honor of International Transgender Day of Visibility, I asked ten Breaking the Binary Theatre artists to celebrate this special day by using this definition as a prompt to generate something new we could platform on BTB’s Instagram page. This year, we expanded on this work and awarded ten new BTB artists $1,000 to create an original piece for this very zine. I am so thrilled to share these expansive and imaginative pieces with you. That said, I would be remiss not to share that, truthfully, I have found it difficult to find my personal Cloud Nine this year.
It is difficult for me to think of clouds and not be reminded of the recent devastating losses within our community. I look up at the clouds and feel Cecilia Gentili, Righteous Torrence <Chevy= Hill, Alex Franco, Nex Benedict, and countless others looking down on me. Looking out for me. Both beauty and grief overwhelm.
It is difficult for me to think of clouds and not be reminded of the record number of anti-trans bills that continue to be introduced across this country on a near-daily basis. I look up at the clouds and am reminded that we live in a world in which we have to fight for our personhood to be recognized and respected on a daily basis.
It is difficult for me to think of clouds and not be reminded of the large black clouds of smoke hanging over the skyline of Gaza. I look up at the clouds and think of the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians whose lives we have lost due to war.
In my Cloud Nine, the lives of transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) people are celebrated and honored by all. In my Cloud Nine, TNB2S+ people do not have to fight to be, we simply are. In my Cloud Nine, innocent civilians are no longer used as pawns in warfare and humanitarian aid is no longer conditional.
Maybe one day my Cloud Nine will be a reality, but in the meantime–in this current reality–these dreams still often feel too large to grasp. As the leader of a twenty-month-old not-forprofit theatre, what we as an organization can do feels quite limited. As the leader of this space, what I can do myself also feels limited. As these commissioned pieces by our BTB artists began to roll in, I was immediately overwhelmed with a sensation I had been yearning for: hope. In these ten commissions, I was quickly reminded that small ripples can create big waves.
Breaking the Binary Theatre can continue to serve TNB2S+ theatermakers as not only a space to develop new work, but also a culture hub in which we can both build community and share knowledge, resources, and humanity. I can continue to honor the lives of those we’ve lost by fighting back against anti-trans politics to prevent these bills from becoming law. I can continue to advocate for a just ceasefire in the Middle East–one that frees all civilian hostages and prevents the death toll from increasing. I can continue to educate myself on the ongoing crises in Haiti, Sudan, the Congo, and anywhere else in which there is an ongoing fight for liberation. I can continue to play my part in the process of Land Back–not only here in America, but also by supporting these efforts in Palestine and anywhere else our Indigenous and Two-Spirit colleagues are valiantly fighting to reclaim what was stolen from them. I can continue to actively combat racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, anti-blackness, and islamophobia. I can continue to create small ripples. <No one of us can be free until everybody is free.= - Maya Angelou.
Engaging with the Breaking the Binary community and diving into some of their work helped me find my Cloud Nine again. Welcome to BTB’s Cloud Nine Zine; I hope it helps you unlock your own Cloud Nine, too.
George Strus Founding Artistic Director of Breaking the Binary Theatre 3.31.24
anonymous
Appointment at the Quality Inn
Appointment at the Quality Inn" is a revised excerpt of a solo piece I have been slowly working on for the past five years, chronicling my experiences as a sex worker from late 2016 to early 2019. I had lost a job and was preparing to move to New York. At the same time, I was being pursued by chasers on The Apps who only wanted to fetishize me when I was looking for something more <real.= When one of them finally offered me money, I thought, why don’t I just do this until another opportunity comes along? Although I started out of need, over time, being a sex worker taught me about myself in ways that were (mostly) empowering.
The full text is still a work in progress. Minor details were changed (the guy’s name and username, the location, etc.) but otherwise these events happened exactly as described. It has been rewritten for Breaking the Binary so that it can function as a standalone piece.
This piece is dedicated to the memory of Cecilia Gentili. In all the times I stood beside her demanding justice for sex workers, I never told her I used to be one. I don’t know why and I’ll forever regret it, because she, of all people, would have understood. -Anonymous
b acts. Writes. And moves around. They are a proud alum of Breaking The Binary Theatre. They starred off-Broadway in TOROS for Second Stage Theater, AMERICAN (TELE)VISIONS b_intheworld_
SANCTUARY
Sanctuary is a mini doc about hair, transition, embodiment, and community. It was made with love by b, N’yomi Stewart, Clew, E. Lee, and Sagë Asa. Direction and concept by b.
(they/them)
and Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021.They are the 2023 NYFA Ryan Hudak Playwright Award Winner. Their work has been featured in LA Times, The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, Women Deliver, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, Prelude Festival, Center At West Park, The Tank, The Public, and several other venues and publications internationally.
mama the people around me take care of me in ways you have and never will
Arisan or <gathering= in Indonesian usually refers to a group of friends who host monthly dinner parties where they put a certain amount of cash in a pot every month to cover rent, groceries, costume money for an upcoming show, and other needs. This form of mutual aid has been used from the 80s onwards in Indonesia and diasporic trans communities in the U.S. in order to cover basic needs and actualize the goals and dreams of trans folks for decades.
<I’ll Love Today’s You Forever= is a set of poems created based on excerpts of interviews with friends attending a cloud nine themed dinner party that pays homage to Indonesian arisans. During the dinner, trans, non binary, femme, and gender expansive folks will be asked how friendship helps them achieve cloud nine and what their cloud nine would look like. From there, poems were written using words from their interviews to not only showcase that cloud nine is achievable for us, but serve as an artistic archive to how we have consistently built worlds and utopias with our own means for decades.
Click to read the poems
-Dena dispatchdena
Diana Oh "Zaza D"
Diana Oh "Zaza D" (they/them) is an open channel to the art that feels good to their body and is driven most by pleasure, mutual care, and keeping things heart-centered. Oh is an Actor, Writer, Musician, Singer/Songwriter, a DJ rooted in Clairvoyance and Transcendentalism, and Creator of Spaces, Performance, Installation, Documentary Film, Wizard Phoenix Unboxable Art, Gatherings, and Dance Party. Passionate about healing and queering processes, Oh’s work defies easy categorization. The New York Times calls it <messybeautiful,= and <(a) blend of compassion, defiance and practicality= <with the joyous freedom to be yourself, whatever pronouns you use.= Creator of {my lingerie play}... (NY Times Critics Pick, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Infinite Love Party (NY Times Critics Pick, Bushwick Starr), CLAIRVOYANCE... (American Repertory Theatre, Boston Public Library, Institute of Contemporary Art), OH FAMILY CONCERT (All Arts TV, PBS, Roku), The Gift Project: Interview and Concert celebrating and centering Elders of Marginalized Experience (Symphony Space, All for One), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (Ma-Yi, The Public EWG), and more. Oh is a U.S.A. Fellow, Venturous Capital Fellow, Sundance Institute Fellow, and Tow Fellow, as well as the Recipient of A Helen Merrill Playwright, Susan Steinberg Playwright, and an Art Equity Persephone Award.
@ohyeadiana
@professionalLapDog
24 Minute Brain Massage
Else Went
Else Went is a playwright and sound designer. She is the current Tow Foundation Resident Playwright at The Public Theater. Her work has been developed through writing labs and groups at The Public Theatre (EWG), Ars Nova (Play Group), WP (Lab), Playwrights Realm (Fellowship), Trans Theatre Lab, and Bechdel Project (FifE Fellow). Recipient of new work commissions and internal development from MTC Sloan Foundation (An Oxford Man), Breaking the Binary Festival (I Am The Most Beautiful Bird), Weston Playhouse, Parity Productions, and Period Piece. She has been in residence with MacDowell, The Mercury Store, Stillwright, and Barn Arts Collective. Further collaborative support from NYTW, Mercury Store, South Coast Reperatory, The Tank, The Brick, and ISC.
Ianne Fields Stewart
Ianne Fields Stewart is a multihyphenate creative working at the intersection of art, activism, and pleasure. Their work spans across many fields including: theatre, film, dance, creative writing, arts administration, and social justice. She is dedicated to creating art, facilitating spaces, and influencing organizational practices that allow Black queer and trans people to radically luxuriate in our own joy. To put it simply, she wants to make their people feel good.
Jay Délise
Jay Délise (official jester of Sugar Hill) is a writer, theater artist, eater of grapes, and producer based in Harlem, New York. They have performed at The United Nations, The Schomburg Center, The Pulitzer Center, and Carnegie Hall. Their work has been highlighted around the world and in publications including Afropunk, Vagabond City, Glass Poetry Press, and Huffington Post.
rad pereira
Rad Pereira is an (im)migrant cultural worker from Pindorama (Brasil), building consciousness between healing justice, system change, reindigenization and queer futures. Their work in performance, education and social practice has been experienced on stages, screens, stoops, swamps and sidewalks all over Turtle Island through the support of many communities, organizations, and groups. They are building a two-spirit Haudenosaunee led food sovereignty project: Iron Path Farms. Their book Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, By Those Who Lived ItisavailablethroughNewVillagePress.
Spencer James Weidie
(they/them)
Spencer James Weidie is originally from Kailua, Hawai’i. They hold a BFA from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase and also studied at the London Contemporary Dance School, Springboard Danse Montreal, and with the Merce Cunningham Trust. Spencer has held company positions with Trisha Brown Dance Company, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and more. Most recently, they were a rehearsal director for Belinda McGuire Projects, a choreographic assistant to Kyle Abraham, a finalist in the 2023 Future Dance Festival, and in the final cast of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More. Spencer is making their Broadway Debut as Dance Captain/Swing for Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club!
@spencerjamesweidie
PURGATORY
WILL SHISHMANIAN
Will Shishmanian is a composer/lyricist/guitarist based in NYC. He wrote <Amberland: A Folk Musical=, which was performed in concert at Hope Mill Theater in 2022, and was featured in Playbill’s Songwriter Series in November 2023. He wrote music and lyrics for "Addy & Dahlia: A Fairytale Musical=, which was performed at The Secret Theater in 2019. He co-wrote <A Piece of the Past= with collaborator Brooke Trumm for Prospect Theater Company’s Musical Theater lab in 2023. Will performs at concerts, readings, and recording sessions around the city. His solo music can be found under the artist name Will Shish.
@willshish
in this place
Credits and Lyrics (he/him)
Breaking the Binary Theatre launched their inaugural Cloud Nine Commissions program to celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2023. Click on the squares to view each 2023 Cloud Nine Commission.
2023 commissions
Futaba Shioda (he/him)
Justin David Sullivan (he/she/they)
Kedian Keohan (they/he)
L Morgan Lee (she/her)
Click on the squares to view each 2023 Cloud Nine commission.
Mara Vélez Meléndez (she/her)
Nora Schell (they/them)
Sam Hamashima (they/them)
Noax (they/them)
Roger Q. Mason (they/them)
Ty Defoe (he/we/ty)
Breaking the Binary Theatre is an Obie Awardwinning new work development and community building hub wherein transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+*) artists come together to reclaim our artistic license and liberty through a number of initiatives, including the yearly allTNB2S+ Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival each October.
Founded and led by George Strus (they/them), since Breaking the Binary Theatre’s launch in July 2022, the organization has paid out over $650,000 to over 500 TNB2S+ artists.
Following the success of Overheard, L Morgan Lee and George Strus joined forces again to create Bliss: A Collection of Commissioned Scenes and Monologues for the grand finale of the second annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival in 2023. Inspired by the prompt <euphoria: a feeling of well-being or elation,= twelve transgender, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) playwrights tackle what it means to find, feel, and give bliss. Ranging from bitingly satirical to eerily supernatural to beautifully lyrical, this knockout series of monologues and scenes is fulfilling. BLISS is now available to purchase and license via BroadwayLicensing. BLISS