Rescheduled due to COVID-19
T(estosterone) follows two trans and gender non-conforming best friends on a trip to Planned Parenthood as Blue gets on T to transition and Lee gets off T to get pregnant.
Is testosterone the holy grail of (trans)masculinity, or is it just another drug? Hormones can be magical, alchemical: gel, rubbed on the chest and arms once a day, can transform a body; a weekly shot can make a life feel, finally, possible. But like any substance, access, quality, and outcome are not evenly distributed. And like any marker of identity, stories that surround it easily become oversimplified, even oppressive.
T is an investigation into real trans lives and an intervention into oversimplified narratives that surround testosterone as hormone replacement therapy. Join us in the waiting room of Planned Parenthood as we follow stories that embody the diversity and complexity of real gender processes.
The Project
Artists’ Theater of Boston is committed to ending relationship-based, gendered, and sexual violence. We are committing to the year-long pursuit of a project in an effort to work towards this goal, and we hope you will join us in this fight.
We are producing T(ESTOSTERONE) with a cast and artistic team comprised wholly of trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming folx. If that’s you, we’d love to connect!
Contact us at info@artiststheater.org to find out more about how you can get involved.
Playwrights
Kit Yan is a Yellow American New York based artist, born in Enping, China, and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Kit is a 2019 Vivace Award winner, 2020 Musical Theater Factory Makers Fellow, a 2020 Playwright’s Center Many Voices Fellow, 2019 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, 2019 Lincoln Center Writer in residence, a 2019 MacDowell Fellow, , a 2019 NAMT selection for Interstate, and a 2020-2021 Company One/Pao Arts Fellow.
Kit’s forthcoming works along with collaborator Melissa Li include a production of INTERSTATE at Mixed Blood Theater in March 2020, a first draft commission of MISS STEP from 5th Avenue Theater, and a commission from Keen Company for a Keen Teens one act musical.
INTERSTATE, won 5 awards at the 2018 New York Musical Festival including Best Lyrics. Kit’s show QUEER HEARTACHE has won 5 awards at the Chicago and SF Fringe Festivals.
Their work has been produced by the American Repertory Theater, the Smithsonian, Musical Theater Factory, the New York Musical Festival, Diversionary Theater, and Dixon Place. They have been a resident with the Civilians, Mitten Lab, 5th Avenue Theater, and the Village Theater.
In 2018 Kit founded Translab an incubator for Transgender and Non-binary voices in the American Theater along with MJ Kaufman and supported by WP Theater and the Public Theater.
Simone Wolff is a multi-genre writer and editor.
As a poet, their work has been published in places like Leste Magazine, Bone Bouquet, and Souvenir.
As an essayist/reviewer/interviewer, in Mask Magazine, Ladyclever, and Bookslut.
As an editor, they’ve headed up poetry at Nashville Review and book design at Coconut, Gladfact, and Trans Genre.
As a playwright, they have been part of 2016-17 The Civilians R&D Group and a semi-finalist for the 2017 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship.
In 2017 they started Translate Studios, along with their longtime collaborator Kit Yan.
Director
Orion S. Johnstone is a Queer as fuck/care-centered organizer, theater director, composer, writer, facilitator, and community minister fiercely dedicated to our collective healing and liberation. Their main focus, at the moment, is writing their first book, entitled WHOLE SEX: beyond a memoir, visions and practices for being together bravely. Here is more info on the book and ways to support their writing process.
Their acclaimed, music-drenched, highly collaborative theater work is an extension of their organizing, rooted in our collective healing and liberation. This is their favorite recent interview as an artist.
They co-directed Diana Oh’s {my lingerie play}: The Concert and Call to Arms!!!!!!!!! (Rattlestick), and they were co-captain/music supervisor/contributing composer for the TEAM’s Primer For a Failed Superpower alongside Rachel Chavkin and Nehemiah Luckett. They were a Directing Fellow in TransLab 2018 (the Public Theater/WP), and they are currently developing work, as a director, with playwrights Kit Yan, Simone Wolff, and Liliana Padilla.
They were composer/MD for Light Shining In Buckinghamshire (NYTW), and other original music of theirs has been featured at venues including CSC, HERE, 3LD, Joe’s Pub, the Bushwick Starr, and in NYMF. They were the associate music director of both national tours of War Horse. A graduate of NYU/Tisch, they were the youngest member of the New Dramatists’ Composer/Librettist Studio in 2006.
Also a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and conductor, they have worked with Anais Mitchell, Liz Swados, and Taylor Mac (among others). They spent 2008 in Prague collaborating with the Czech folk band Tripura, and their album of queer loves songs was developed through house concert/conversations in living rooms across the United States.
Composer
Anjimile Chithambo is a Boston-based black, queer and trans songmaker. They are the Massachusetts winner of NPR Music’s 2018 Tiny Desk Contest. Anjimile has released three self-made albums, including “Good Boy” and “Colors.”
Special Thanks
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council and administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture Boston.
We are pleased to also receive support from the Pride Boston Community Fund.
We are Musicians Theater of Boston.