We are proud to invite you to our The PGE First Annual Faces of America Round Table in conjunction with The PGE Faces of America Monologue Festival #4.

Part of The PGE mission is to bring people and community together. Highlighting companies that are doing the the amazing work and commitment to making our theatre world a more inclusive and equitable place seems like the next evolution of that mission.

This is a FREE Event RSVP HERE

Moderated by one of The PGE's most insightful and talented artists: Monica Rounds.

We hope you join us as we hear what brilliant work these four industry leaders are doing.

Breaking the Binary is a theatrical development and community hub wherein transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) artists come together and reclaim our artistic license and liberty. BTB recently presented the first Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival over the week of October 10-16, 2022. Coinciding with LGBTQ+ History Month and National Coming Out Day, seven teams of TNB2S+ playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, stage managers, and performers (yes, even in roles written for cis folks!) came together at Theatre Row to develop and showcase seven evenings of new work created by TNB2S+ artists for TNB2S+ artists.

George Strus (they/he) is a genderqueer Latinx theatremaker living on the unceded ancestral lands of the Munsee Lenape Nation in New York. They founded Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival: a developmental hub for transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ theatermakers. They previously held positions at Second Stage Theater, A3 Artists Agency, Manhattan Theatre Club, Pride Plays at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Playbill, Stacey Mindich Productions, Alchemation, Telsey + Company Casting, Paper Mill Playhouse, and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. @GeorgeStrus

The Latinx Playwrights Circle aims to build a network of Latinx/é Playwrights nationwide in order to promote, develop and elevate their work in order to make their plays accessible to theater-makers looking to find the next generation of American Storytellers.

Alisha Espinosa (Producing Artistic Director, LPC) is an Afro-Boricua storyteller (playwright/actor). She is a 2022 Audrey Resident at New Georges and a recipient of a Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment Grant with the Latinx Playwrights Circle. She was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group (’21-22), a finalist for the Eugene O’Neill 2021 NPC (The Language of the Unheard), and commissioned for the 48 Hours in El Bronx 2021 Digital Festival. Her plays have been developed and/or presented at LATEA, Primary Stages, The Drama League, PACE University, Clubbed Thumb, and Step1 Theatre Project. A selection of her work can be found on the New Play Exchange Network. Select Acting Credits: blooms (EST) A Skeptic & A Bruja (Urbanite), Seize the King (Classical Theatre of Harlem), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP Theatre), Hamlet (Stage One), Shakespeare: The Remix (Capital Rep), Much Ado About Nothing (KY Shakespeare). alishaespinosa.com | @la.espi | MFA UMKC

Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB) is the only professional Off-Broadway theater organization dedicated to advancing artists and developing audiences of people with disabilities and altering the misperceptions surrounding disability by proving, once and for all, that disability does not affect the quality or integrity of our art or artists. We began in 1979 and are currently celebrating our 43rd season!

NICHOLAS VISELLI (Artistic Director) joined TBTB in 1997 and is deeply humbled to continue the company's legacy, started by his predecessor, TBTB's founding Artistic Director, Ike Schambelan.

Nick has directed several plays for TBTB, including the critically acclaimed 2022 revival production of Brecht On Brecht, TBTB’s first production following the 2-year COVID-19 shutdown. He has also served as the company’s sound designer, travel coordinator, administrative associate and Associate Director. He has attended eight International Theater Festivals for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Zagreb, Croatia as an actor and has served as the producer, director and key coordinator for the company during their festival appearances in 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2019. In 2013 and 2015, Nick also orchestrated, developed, produced and directed three special theater pieces by TBTB, commissioned for the United Nations to commemorate the International Day of Disaster Risk Reduction and The International Day of People with Disabilities. In 2019, he organized and coordinated TBTB’s appearance at the United Nations’ Department of Disaster Risk Reduction’s Global Platform in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2014, he produced and coordinated TBTB's 1st visit to Japan, when the company was invited to attend both the BIRD International Theatre Festival and Japan's National Festival for People with Disabilities. In 2017 and 2018, Nick orchestrated two subsequent tours to Japan, performing in several major Japanese cities during each visit. He is currently coordinating TBTB’s 2022 trip to Japan, where TBTB will collaborate for the first time ever with Japan’s FREEDOM Theatre, an arts organization, like TBTB, that showcases the work of artists with disabilities.

Project1VOICE, Inc. (P1V) is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit performing arts service organization based in New York City.  Its mission is to support and promote the American theater specifically the narrative of and by people of African descent.

Erich McMillan-McCall

Monica Rounds-Moderator

ABOUT THE FACES OF AMERICA MONOLOGUE FESTIVAL

Each year we celebrate the diverse stories that make up America by inviting writers to submit two minute monologues that showcase the broad spectrum of what it is to live, work and play in America. Our aim is to collect unique, captivating and beautiful stories and share them so that we learn, grow and hear each other. Selected monologues are performed at a special event in November and published in an anthology. Each year we chose a word that should be included in each monologue, the chosen word for this year’s festival is kindness.

Because the Faces of America is about sharing, we use this festival as a way to raise funds for important causes such as the Native American Rights Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Black Lives Matter. The cause for our fourth festival is the Transgender Law Center.

We created the Faces of America Monologue Festival in 2019 in response to the inequality of opportunities available to marginalized communities. It has been amazing to watch this festival grow each year.