10 playwrights share queer-themed short plays at benefit hosted by Peppermint with Yuhua Hamasaki, Murray Hill & Jeff Hiller.
Monday, May 13 at NYU Skirball
Voyage Theater Company will present SAY GAY PLAYS, an evening of queer theater to benefit New Alternatives For Homeless LGBT Youth on Monday, May 13 at NYU Skirball. The night will be hosted by Peppermint (Head Over Heels, The Traitors) with special guest appearances by Yuhua Hamasaki (RuPaul's Drag Race), Murray Hill (Somebody Somewhere), and Jeff Hiller (American Horror Story: NYC).
SAY GAY PLAYS will feature staged readings of 10 LGBTQ+ themed short plays by: Fernanda Coppel, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Ty Defoe, Marquis D. Gibson, Nina Ki, Derick Edgren Otero, Harrison David Rivers, J. Harvey Stone, Lucy Thurber, and Doug Wright. Following the benefit reading, the plays will be made available royalty-free to not-for-profit theaters, colleges and universities, and community organizations across the nation for use to present their own fundraising events on behalf of LGBTQ+ organizations in their communities. The evening will also feature the presentation of the Say Gay Plays New Voices Awards to two finalists from the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards program.
SAY GAY PLAYS will be presented on Monday, May 13 at 7pm at NYU Skirball (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY 10012). Tickets are $56 - $156, available at tickets.nyu.edu/saygayplays
SAY GAY PLAYS was conceived by Voyage Theater Company in association with Tectonic Theater Project, Miami New Drama, and Provincetown Theater in response to the 2022 passage of the Parental Rights in Education bill in Florida, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. In 2023, more than 520 state bills attacking LGBTQ+ rights were introduced, with more than 75 becoming law. The Human Rights Campaign officially declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States for the first time in history. And it’s getting worse. According to the ACLU, in 2024 alone, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in 35 state legislatures around the country. SAY GAY PLAYS is about sharing queer stories of courage, triumph, and joy to counter the harmful narratives used as justification for the passage of these discriminatory bills.
The goal of SAY GAY PLAYS is two-fold: to raise awareness for LGBTQ+ equality during this election year and offer financial support to potentially hundreds of not-for-profit organizations across the country. The project’s website, SayGayPlays.org, will serve as a hub for applicants and participants, while tracking the project’s impact nationwide.
The SAY GAY PLAYS are:
• The Greenhouse
By J. Harvey Stone / Directed by Joseph Megel
In 1972, a group of gay undergraduate men meet clandestinely each week at a campus greenhouse. A missing book and a changing world force them to come to terms with what they mean to each other and how much they need the safe space.
• Principal’s Office
By Fernanda Coppel / Directed by Lisa Rothe
Lesbian Latinx mother Lourdes confronts another parent’s bigotry at her child’s school, where discussion of LGBTQ+ families has recently become illegal.
• Swann Song
By Marquis D. Gibson / Directed by Raz Golden
Undergrad student Earl challenges academic norms, performing his senior thesis in homage to William Dorsey Swann, history’s first self-proclaimed drag queen.
• Happy Endings For People Like Us
By Nina Ki / Directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
As Jordan is preparing to leave home for her freshman year at college, her queer non-binary sibling Nani panics, feeling abandoned and vulnerable without their older sister’s protection.
• Two-Spirit F(l)ag
By Ty Defoe / Directed by Jayna Shoda Meyer
Moon — a two-spirit, Indigiqueer/trans student — seeks counsel and connection from their elder, Duncle Jay, as they create a special flag in preparation for the Chicago State University Liberation Pow Wow.
• i love the shit out of you
By Harrison David Rivers / Directed by Tyrone Mitchell Henderson
A young gay man is triggered when his lover dumps him via Post-it.
• Diet Pride
By Derick Edgren Otero / Directed by Matthew Pezzulich
A marketing executive at a soft drink company will reveal her true colors this Pride month.
• question (ˈkwɛs.tʃən) vb., the imperative form
By Mashuq Mushtaq Deen / Directed by Lisa Rothe
A choral meditation on gender, language, and our shared humanity.
• Late Night Drink
By Lucy Thurber / Directed by Jenna Worsham
Dolores has ridden her rebuilt Triumph Bonneville 1959 T120 motorcycle from New Hampshire to seek solace and safety in an NYC lesbian bar. What she finds there is an unexpected connection to young bartender Julissa.
• An Address to the Florida Legislature
By Doug Wright / Directed by Raz Golden
Outspoken conservative John Q. Public offers some pragmatic suggestions for strengthening Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bills.
SAY GAY PLAYS will star Inga Ballard, Nic Billey, Evangeline Billups, Jack Cherry, Jonathan Chisolm, Erica Cruz Hernández, Lawrence Davis Jr., Rina Dutta, Emmanuel Elpenord, Jamie Feidner, Kevin R. Free, Claire Gardner, Danny Johnson, Jess Kadish Hernandez, Bianca Leigh, Jack Mastrianni, Joey Morof, Benjamin Paulk, Dale Soules, Robert Stanton, Zo Tipp, Eric R. Williams, and Alex Wyse.
The Advisory Committee for SAY GAY PLAYS is Rev. Micah Bucey (Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church), Gary Garrison (Managing Director of Provincetown Theater), Dean Gray (Board Member of Merryall Center), Tyrone Mitchell Henderson (Artistic Director of Quick Silver Theater Company), Moisés Kaufman (Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project), Jamil Khoury & Malik Gilani (Co-Artistic Directors of Silk Road Rising), Stephanie Klapper (Stephanie Klapper Casting), Joseph Megel (Professor at UNC–Chapel Hill), Michael Ngo (President of Voyage Theater Company), Lisa Rothe (Senior Lecturer at Binghamton University and Adjunct Faculty at Columbia University), and Kathleen Salazar (Artistic Associate at Voyage Theater Company).
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Fernanda Coppel (she/her) is a Mexican/American playwright and screenwriter. Her play King Liz received its world premiere at Second Stage Theater in 2015. Her professional New York debut, Chimichangas and Zoloft, premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2012 and is published by Samuel French. Fernanda received the New Play Commission from Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2015, where she wrote her latest play: AYA or Dear Lover. She’s currently working on a commission for La Jolla Playhouse. Fernanda’s work has won the 2012 HOLA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting and the 2012 Helen Merrill Award. She’s an alum of: The Juilliard School, NYU (MFA), and UC Santa Cruz (BA). Fernanda’s also written for TV shows such as: Shonda Rhimes-produced How to Get Away with Murder, Jason Katims’s Rise, USA Network’s adaptation of Queen of the South, among others. In feature film, Fernanda co-wrote No One Gets Out Alive, which was produced by Netflix and Andy Serkis’ UK-based Imaginarium Productions and premiered on Netflix in fall 2021.
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (he/they) is an award-winning Brooklyn based playwright. A CORE writer at the Playwrights Center and winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Draw the Circle, Deen has had his plays produced by PlayMakers Rep, Mosaic Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Keen Company, as well as others. Deen’s work has been supported by a number of institutions, some include: the Siena Art Institute, Sundance Theatre Institute & the Ucross Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, The Public Theater, NYTW, New York Foundation for the Arts, InterAct Theatre, Page73, Ma-Yi, as well as numerous others. They have also been supported by a number of festivals and universities and have received grants from places like the New York Foundation for the Arts,the Bronx Cultural Council, and TCG. He is a member of the NYTW Usual Suspects and the Dramatists Guild. He is an alum of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Public Theater Writers Group, and New Dramatists. He earned his MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School/New School for Drama.
Ty Defoe (he/him/they/them/we/us) is an Indigiqueer/2S+ citizen of the Oneida/Ojibwe Nations. A director, writer, interdisciplinary artist, and Grammy Award-winner, Ty aspires to an interweaving and glitterizing approach to artistic projects with social justice, indiqueering, and environmental-ism. Ty’s global cultural arts highlights: the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt; International Music Festival, Ankara, Turkey; and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai. Awards: Global Indigenous Heritage Festival Award, Jonathan Larson Award, First Peoples Cultural Capital Fellow, Helen Merrill Playwriting Award 2021, and finalist at the Cordillera International Film Festival for We Will Always Be Here. Works created and authored: Trail and Tears (w/ Dawn Avery), River of Stone, Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name, The Lesson (w/ Avi Amon and Nolan Doran), and Firebird Tattoo, among others. Current release of VR and digital media projects ANAKWAD (w/ Dov Heichemer and _alpha), CIRCLE, and Strong Like Flower (w/ Katherine Freer). An artEquity facilitator, co-founder of Indigenous Direction (w/ Larissa FastHorse). Member of All My Relations Collective, whose GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky was presented at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. Publications: Casting a Movement, Pitkin Review, Thorny Locust Magazine, HowlRound, and Routledge Press, The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays for the Stage. Degrees from CalArts, Goddard College, and NYU Tisch. Director: The Winter Bear (Perseverance Theater), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Arizona Shakespeare Company). Movement Direction: Mother Road, directed by Bill Rauch (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Manahatta, directed by Laurie Woolery (OSF and Yale Rep); and choreographer for Tracy Letts’s The Minutes (Broadway). Ty appeared on the Netflix show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and in Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, directed by Anna Shapiro (Broadway debut). Lives in NYC + loves the color clear.
Marquis D. Gibson (he/him) is an actor/writer from Durham, NC. He trained at Howard University, where he graduated magna cum laude, as well as with SpringboardNYC and AADA-Los Angeles. Marquis is a veteran of the American Conservatory Theater, Marin Shakespeare, Cincinnati Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theater, and many more. Marquis was a cast member in the Pulitzer-prize-winning play Fat Ham by James Ijames, which played at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway, following sold-out runs at the Public Theater in New York. He went on to perform the starring role of Juicy in the show's transfer to D.C.
Nina Ki (xe/she/they) is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright who lives in Brooklyn. Xe holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and xer plays have been read, recorded, and presented nationwide, including with MCC Theater, Queens Theatre, Yale Summer Cabaret, and The Parsnip Ship. Xer play Moon Bear was given special consideration for the Relentless Award, and xer play Taemong (Birth Dream) was a finalist for the Van Lier Fellowship. Xe was also an inaugural member of The Parsnip Ship’s Radio Roots Writer’s Group and is currently a part of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writer’s Group
Derick Edgren Oden (they/he) is a former Lambda Literary Fellow and recent participant in the Fresh Ground Pepper NYC BRB Retreat. Development includes Lambda Literary LGBTQ+ Emerging Writers Retreat with faculty Victor I. Cazares, La MaMa Umbria with guest artist Todd London, November Theatre, Art Garage, Cherry Lane Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, and Rockford New Play Festival, curated by Nathan Alan Davis. Awards in KCACTF Region V: 2024 John Cauble One-Act Festival, 2024 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and 2024 and 2023 Latinx Playwriting Award. University Awards: 2018 Lipkin Prize in Humanities, 2017 David Lindsay-Abaire Prize in Playwriting. Finalist: 2023 Catskills Creative Residency, 2020 Campfire Theatre Festival, 2016 and 2015 Capital Repertory NEXT ACT New Play Summit, 2015 and 2014 Rockford New Play Festival; semi-finalist: 2021 Playwrights Realm's Scratchpad Series, 2017 O'Neill National Playwriting Conference; long list: 2019 Independent International Award for Improper Dramaturgy. BA, Sarah Lawrence. MFA, Iowa Playwrights Workshop.
Harrison David Rivers (he/him) is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. His works include The Salvagers (Yale Rep), we are continuous (Uptown Players, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Geva Theatre Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival), the bandaged place (Roundabout, NYSF), This Bitter Earth (Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, White Bear Theatre, Seattle Public, TheatreWorks Hartford, InterAct, The Road, Richmond Triangle Players, Theater Alliance, About Face, Penumbra, NCTC), among others, and the musicals We Shall Someday with Ted Shen and I Put a Spell on You with Nubya Garcia. His television credits include One of Us Is Lying (Peacock), The Nevers (HBO) and Wytches (Amazon). Harrison is a recipient of McKnight, Jerome and Van Lier Fellowships, residencies with the Siena Art Institute, NYTW, Williamstown, Geva, and Duke University, and commissions from Roundabout, Transport Group, Penumbra, Geva, La Jolla Playhouse, and Minnesota Opera. He sits on the Board of Directors of The Movement Theatre Company and the Playwrights’ Center. MFA: Columbia University.
J. Harvey Stone (he/him/his) is a public school theatre teacher, director, and writer living in Williamsburg, Virginia. Harvey has taught learners from ages 2 through 72 in everything from Shakespeare to swimming, and from Plutarch to pedagogy. Harvey is in his 24th year of teaching and currently teaches and directs the theatre program at Jamestown High School. Harvey and his Jamestown students are four-time winners of the “Best Original Play” award from the Virginia Theatre Association. Harvey is pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at The Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. A simple foodie, Harvey is always looking for the world’s best pimento cheese.
Lucy Thurber (she/her) is a TV/film writer and OBIE Award-winning playwright. She has written films and/or TV episodes for networks and streaming services including HBO, Amazon, AMC, Hulu, and Starz, among others. Lucy is the author of numerous plays, including Where We’re Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Transfers, and many others. Her work has been produced by places like MCC, Williamstown, Labyrinth Theater Company, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, The Axis Theater, The New Ohio Theatre, The Atlantic Theater, and numerous others. Lucy is published by Dramatists Play Service. She is an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of 13P, Labyrinth Theater Company, Rising Phoenix Rep, and New Neighborhood. Lucy has been commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Houses on The Moon, Yale Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and A.C.T. She is the recipient of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Playwriting Fellowship, the first Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting, the Helen Merrill Award, a LILLY Award, and an OBIE Award for The Hill Town Plays. Lucy was formerly the head of Graduate Playwriting at The New School. She has taught writing classes for NYU/Tisch, Columbia, Sarah Lawrence College, Primary Stages, and MCC Theatre.
Doug Wright (he/him) is a celebrated playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He attended Yale University and New York University. Wright has written three musicals (including Grey Gardens, produced 2006–07), eight plays, and one feature film. His best-known play is I Am My Own Wife (produced in 2003–04), which won many honors, including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award for Best Play, and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play (all in 2004). He also wrote both the Obie Award-winning play Quills (1995) and the original screenplay for the 1999 film of the same name, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, among other honors. His Broadway credits include War Paint, Hands on a Hardbody (Drama Desk Nomination), The Little Mermaid, Grey Gardens (Tony Award nomination), I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award, Pulitzer Prize). Off-Broadway credits include Posterity (Atlantic Theater Company); Unwrap Your Candy (Vineyard Theater); Quills (New York Theatre Workshop); Standing on Ceremony (Minetta Lane Theater); Buzzsaw Berkeley (WPA Theater). Films include Quills (Paul Selvin Award, WGA) and The Burial (starring Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones). He is the former president of the Dramatists Guild of America and a member of SAG-AFTRA, SDC, and the WGA.
Voyage Theater Company (VTC) presents new and unheralded plays and playwrights from around the world, creating opportunities for collaboration between theater-makers of diverse cultures. Their inaugural production, part of La MaMa’s 50th anniversary season, was the world premiere of Obama 44 by Mario Fratti in 2012, followed by Aleksei Arbuzov’s My Poor Marat, performed in both Russian and English. VTC produced the world premiere of Intermission by Daniel Libman in 2014 at Theatre Row, the same year they launched the Parts Unknown Play Reading Series — free and open to the public — featuring new plays from around the world and new play translations. Additional productions include the New York premieres of Sun by Adrienne Kennedy and Unveiled by Rohina Malik; August Strindberg's The Pelican; Unveiled at the South African National Arts Festival and Johannesburg 969 Festival; The Mecca Tales by Rohina Malik; Tentacles by Tessa Flannery, as part of the 2018 Frigid NY Festival; the critically acclaimed Hope Hypothesis by Cat Miller; and, most recently, Don't Look Back by Adam Kraar. Artistic Director: Wayne Maugans; Executive Director: Charles C. Bales.
New Alternatives increases the self-sufficiency of LGBTQ+ homeless youth and young adults by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives. They do this by providing long-term support, weekly case management, education services, life skills training, community-building recreational activities, opportunities for self-expression, and programs for HIV+ youth. Their guiding principles are those of harm reduction, youth development, and empowerment.
NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City’s major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 860-seat state-of-the art theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators and thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance art to comedy, music and film.