Cross-Cultural Queer Storytelling Project Premiers In L.A.

New York-based Houses on the Moon Theater Company and Mumbai-based Anekant Productions are proud to present the second installment of The Q Story Stream, a series of storytelling performances in Los Angeles and Mumbai, India in which live, true stories from queer storytellers in each city are presented. With the help of livestreaming and recorded video, LA-based artists are presented alongside storytellers from halfway across the planet. The performance in Los Angeles will take place on Thursday, June 20th at 8pm at Art Share L.A., located at 801 E. 4th Pl., Los Angeles.

The Q Story Stream feature true stories, by turns poignant, humorous and powerful, that explore the lived experience of LGBTQ people on two continents and deal with shared themes of love and heartbreak, pride and prejudice, law and liberty, family and country. Featured local storytellers include MJ Brown, Jesús Daniel Cruz, Jason Howe, Olivia Typaldos, Cori Bratby-Rudd and Skye Ward.

The performances grew out of concurrent creative storytelling workshops in the U.S. and India in which the participants from each country connected with each other via video chat platforms. The guiding principle of the project is call and response: true stories of love, struggle and liberation told on one continent can entertain, inspire, educate and empower participants and audience members from across the globe.

The program will feature live music, and a livestreamed discussion with the cohort in Mumbai, India (where it will be early Sunday morning).

The project is being led in the U.S. by Houses on the Moon Co-founder and Moth Grand Slam Champion, Jeffrey Solomon, and in India by Sachin Jain, Artistic Director of Anekant Productions and Hindi Editor of Gaylaxy, India's largest LGBT publication.

Tickets for The Q Story Stream are $15.00 and can be purchased in advance at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/10410678 or at the door, as available, starting forty-five minutes before show time. In accordance with the Houses on the Moon mission, a third of the tickets will be made available for free to community groups, with a special focus on engaging underserved audiences including LGBTQ youth, seniors, POC, and immigrants. Please contact kevin@housesonthemoon.org for more information.

Q STORY STREAM, LOS ANGELES DIRECTOR

Jeffrey Solomon, the co-founder of Houses on the Moon Theater Company, curated and directed the story-based theater projects TRANSformation (true stories about gender identity and family), and gUN Country (true stories from people whose lives have been touched by guns.) His solo play MotherSON has had acclaimed runs at HERE, the Oval House (UK), and Theater Works (Melbourne, Australia) and has been presented as an educational and support tool around LGBT and human rights issue in India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Jeff wrote Jim Henson's "CITYKIDS" which was Emmy nominated for Best Children's special. He is a MOTH Grand Slam Champion and has been featured on NPR's Moth Radio Hour.

Q STORY STREAM, MUMBAI DIRECTOR

Sachin Jain, is the founder and Artistic Director of Anekant Productions, based in Mumbai, one of the few theater companies in India dedicated to developing queer themes and talent. He wrote and directed the Hindi language play Bhasmasur. Sachin is a co-writer of the chapter on Jainism in "I am divine, so are you" (Harper Collins, 2017), a book about how Indic religions affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities, and his long-form essay "Not His Master's Voice" been published in "Queer Potli: Memories, Imaginations and Reimaginations of Urban Queerer Spaces in India" (Queer Ink, 2016). Sachin is the Hindi editor of Gaylaxy Magazine for which he writes in Hindi and English. Sachin is the co-founder of Gay Bombay one of India's oldest, grassroots gay social and support organizations Sachin is the founder of the one-of-a-kind GHAR (Gay Housing Assistance Resource), a free, online, pan-Indian bulletin board for queers to find safe housing.

Houses on the Moon Theater Company's mission is to dispel ignorance and isolation through the theatrical amplification of unheard voices. BUILDING HOUSES ON THE MOON, about the lives of GLBT youth, toured NYC schools and won Best Ensemble Production at the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. TARA'S CROSSING, one of the first plays to deal with political asylum for LGBT refugees is presented nationally at Law Schools. DE NOVO, a documentary play about an immigrant teenager fighting deportation has run Off Broadway at 59E59 St. Theaters, NYTW Next Door ('17) and in El Salvador at Palacio Tecleño.

Visit: https://www.housesonthemoon.org.

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