Hi everyone - and happy Juneteenth! It's been awhile since I've come to you all with an update - and a lot has happened. Here's a quick round-up of what I've been lucky enough to be up to for the past few months...
"Like the Sea" WON Judge's Choice at All Out Art's 2024 Fresh Fruit Festival!
At the beginning of May, Johnny Gottsegen and Caz Kingsley took the stage as Amadi and Yung for the 3rd time as part of All Out Art's 2024 Fresh Fruit 10-Minute Play Festival Finalist Showcase to a sold-out crowd. We shared the stage with some amazing queer artists and were delighted and surprised to take home the title of Judge's Choice! Here's a little video of our celebration:
"Casting Out Beasts and Calling Forth Angels" published by Half and One
This piece of creative, autobiographical nonfiction healed a part of me as I wrote it. It feels a little weird, yet freeing to share such intimate parts of my life with the world. Check it out for free, accompanied with beautiful art specifically created for this story, on Half and One!
Casting Out Beasts and Calling Forth Angels
"I don’t have the words for it at my young age, but I was suffering from severe depression; partially because of my genetics, partially because of my upbringing. Trauma and PTSD hide large swathes of my childhood from me and some of my strongest memories are of trying to find ways to urge myself to keep on living; which are often self-destructive. I don’t think twice about disappearing into the brush and returning with wounds – this is normal to me. This is my survival tactic."
TMI Project presents Stories for Freedom: Radically True Stories for Liberation
Since April, I have been helping to lead an incredible team of 10 folks from across the world through a TMI Project true storytelling workshop. These 10 people, who have been cultivating practices of liberation in their communities, are not only amazing people individually - but a powerful cohort of storytellers. Now, in one week, they'll be taking the stage and telling their true stories about how they came to do the work that they do in Stories for Freedom.
Tune in, either in person at the Senate Garage in Kingston, NY or live-streamed worldwide on 7:00 PM, EST Wednesday, June 27th. I promise you - it's not a show you want to miss - and did I mention it's free? Learn more and reserve your tickets with the link below!
And who knows, you might even see a familiar face appear as a co-host ;)
Stories for Freedom, 7:00 PM on Weds., June 26th
Stories for Freedom has gathered ten storytellers, who have been cultivating practices of liberation within their work and lives, to join a TMI Project true storytelling workshop to craft their stories of love, resistance, and growth; stories that can be used to further their work and serve as a blueprint for radical generations to come.
By crafting radically true stories, Stories for Freedom amplifies the voices of artists, activists, and artivists to inspire identification and belonging in audience members, and challenge all of us to take bold action in the disruption of systemic oppression.
I want to thank you so much for your support. It's not easy being an artist and a creator, but when folks come to my shows and see themselves in the characters, experience joy in the theatre, or are moved by my publications - it makes it all worth it.
I've got some big projects on the horizon that I can't wait to share with you. For now, let me end this by saying that it is an honor to keep creating - both for myself, and for you.
Queerly yours,
Raine Grayson
