Trans and nonbinary stars aren’t waiting for Broadway to reopen before getting back to performing in a big way. On June 30, Shakina Nayfack, L Morgan Lee, Ezra Menas, and more will be taking center stage in A Place for Us: A Celebration of Trans and Nonbinary Artists in Musical Theatre.
The free virtual event, which will stream on YouTube, is set to feature 15 original pieces written and performed by trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming members of the theater community, as Broadway World reported. Perhaps most powerfully, at a time when transgender youth are being targeted with discriminatory legislation all across the country, A Place for Us will benefit the Gender & Family Project, a trans-inclusive family therapy organization.
Nayfack, who burst onto the scene in Billy Eichner’s irreverent Hulu series Difficult People, also became the first trans person to star on a major network comedy when she appeared on NBC’s short-lived sitcom Connecting… in 2020. She’s also a theater director, choreographer, and producer who previously created the glam-rock musical JUNK: A Rock Opera.
In May of this year, Nayfack came out as nonbinary on Instagram, while noting that she still uses she/her pronouns.
“I’ve personally understood the prefix ‘trans’ to mean ‘beyond’ more than ‘from one to another,’” she wrote. “I’ve claimed the term ‘gender non-conforming’ from the outset of my journey, more than 20 years ago.”
Lee is best-known for her 2019 performance in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop, which made her the first openly trans actor to originate a role in a Pulitzer Prize-winning show. These days, she’s headed to London to play Lili Elbe in a new musical version of The Danish Girl, which Cats director Tom Hooper famously adapted into an Eddie Redmayne-starring film in 2015.
“We never get to see a trans woman play a trans woman [in The Danish Girl], so there’s this something new,” Lee told Diva Magazine in an interview about the role. “And the fact I’m Black brings another layer. I could be the complete opposite of what people expect to see in this kind of narrative, but I think that’s really beautiful and such an example of where our business has the possibility to go.”
You may recognize Menas as an ensemble cast member of the Alanis Morissette-inspired Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill. You can also catch the nonbinary Broadway star portraying Anybodys in Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming West Side Story remake. Menas has long spoken out for nonbinary inclusion in theater.
“I feel as though my dream role is one that doesn’t exist yet,” Menas told The Ensemblist in 2019. The character I’d play uses they pronouns. They are trans and nonbinary, and the story doesn’t focus on that aspect necessarily — it more so accepts that as the reality.”
The list of performers doesn’t end there. A Place for Us will also feature Sis, a New York-based trans actress who wrote, directed, and starred in the new show Our Offering. The multi-hyphenate plays a cosmic being known as “Thee Guide,” who introduces audiences to the town of Rivera Falls, jumping through time and highlighting themes of ancestry and community.
“Our Offering was born of a community that wasn’t being represented in the white American theater, so we took matters into our hands,” Sis recently told Broadway.com, adding that she likes to feature “the Black, Brown, and queer folks that have too often been left behind or misrepresented in our industry.”
