T-BOY ON GRINDR to Make U.S. Premiere at The Tank in New York City

Following acclaimed performances across Europe and Asia, T-BOY ON GRINDR, the autofictional solo theater work written and performed by João d'Orey and directed by Malaya Stern Takeda, will make its New York City and U.S. premiere at The Tank on June 19 and June 21 at 9:30 p.m and 7:00pm.

Part coming-of-age story, part musical dreamscape, T-BOY ON GRINDR follows T-Boy, a teenage trans boy navigating the often-unspoken codes of the cisgender gay male community through the dating app Grindr. Moving fluidly between monologue, singing, dance, and autofictional storytelling, the work examines how queer and trans bodies are perceived, desired, and marginalized within both sociopolitical and medical frameworks.

Confronted with rejection and misunderstanding from a community he longs to belong to, T-Boy embarks on a turbulent and imaginative journey in search of intimacy, self-definition, and acceptance. Along the way, the show asks urgent questions: How can queer communities rewrite heteronormative assumptions about desire and body perception? What spaces can we create to celebrate difference rather than replicate exclusion?

For d'Orey, whose writing is marked by interruptions, unexpected turns, and shifts in perspective, the work imagines alternative realities where transness is not treated as an obstacle or revelation. Instead, T-BOY ON GRINDR creates moments of radical simplicity and tenderness-scenarios in which connection exists without qualification, and where trans bodies are neither fetishized nor questioned.