FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
With a $5M Lead Gift From The Mellon Foundation, The Theater Offensive Aims to Build Largest Theater in the The World Owned and Operated by Queer and Trans People of Color
This is how the spell works…
We make magic wherever we go - making do, and making beautiful, and making the spaces our people most need. We remember and uplift the queer stories that shaped this place. We make our own because we refuse to be disappeared and forgotten. - from Queer (Re)Public: On QTPOC Liberatory Aesthetics “Space & Segregation”
BOSTON, February 7, 2023 – The Theater Offensive (TTO)’s Executive Director and Cultural Strategist Harold Steward announced today that The Theater Offensive has launched the public phase of its $20 million campaign to build the Boylston Black Box.
TTO will expand upon its three-decade legacy as a trailblazing art, educational, and social action organization. Through a partnership with the City of Boston and Scape North America – an international developer that delivers innovative urban living solutions – TTO is building a 13,000 square foot cultural facility within Scape’s Boylston Place development in the Fenway district, site of the former Machine and Ramrod Nightclubs. This iconic, innovative, and enduring space will serve as the cultural cornerstone of a mixed-use development at 1252-1270 Boylston Street.
The new facility, anticipated to open in 2024, will be the largest theater in the world owned and operated by queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) for all LGBTQ people, their allies, families and friends. The facility will have flexible seating for 150 audience members and contain cutting-edge modular staging and state-of-the-art equipment along with a dedicated community room and office space.
Upon touring the construction site for the Boylston Black Box, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley noted it was “intentionally designed with community in mind.”
TTO began the quiet phase of a capital campaign to support the project in early 2021 and has now raised $11.5M toward an updated $20M goal. The original campaign goal was $15.1M but with rising pandemic construction costs and other inflationary factors the TTO Board of Directors approved an additional $4.9M toward the overall goal in 2022. “We are deeply grateful to our early supporters, who have helped us surpass the halfway point of our Capital Campaign,” said TTO Board Chair Stetson Marshall.
In January, the Mellon Foundation awarded TTO $5M which included capital funds and programmatic and operating support over three years, making this the largest gift to date in our organizational history and the largest single gift to the capital campaign thus far. The campaign’s success to date is also thanks to a cadre of foundations and key individuals including The Barr Foundation, the Herman and Frieda L. Miller Foundation, the Parker Family Foundation, Eastern Bank Foundation, Dedham Savings Bank Community Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Poss Family Foundation, and Sarah Hancock.
"I hold a multiplicity of identities and have struggled to find belonging. The work of The Theater Offensive has been providing a community of care and belonging for artists, youth, and families to create and share. With the Boylston Black Box, The Theater Offensive is deepening its commitment to its community by building a safe haven and creative hub for queer and trans artists of color." said Emil Kang, Program Director for Arts and Culture at the Mellon Foundation.
Founded in 1989 by Abe Rybeck, TTO grew out of the seminal queer guerrilla street performance troupe United Fruit Company. Today, TTO’s mission is to present liberating art by, for, and about QTPOC that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression.
The Black Box will enhance TTO’s ability to produce its nationally-recognized programming. It will provide the infrastructure and space needed to support:
True Colors Troupe, TTO’s flagship arts education program, where youth participants will have consistent access to identity-affirming and high-quality rehearsal and performance space. True Colors is TTO’s longest-running, award-winning program utilizing community-based theater to train and activate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied youth leaders ages 13-25
TTO’s Queer (Re)Public residency program commissioning, developing, and producing new work by QTPOC artists. Queer (Re)Public honors, uplifts, and builds on emergent themes inherent to and in QTPOC artists and communities through workshops, residencies, and wraparound support
The TTO Queer Family Series (QFS), which began in 2021 with virtual Drag Story Hours and a virtual Pride 10-Minute Play festival, will have space to grow and respond to the needs of Boston’s QTPOC community, providing community members of all ages with affirming arts and educational programming. It is a new, groundbreaking program that captures the imagination and play of the gender & identity fluidity of childhood and human development
Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, TTO’s programming, operations, and capacity have grown over the past three years. “Recent years have required The Theater Offensive to think about regenerative and collective ways to grow and sustain our work. For us, queer regeneration is a reminder that we are a resourceful community and a generous community. Our growth is dependent upon community support and applying pandemic lessons to a radical new vision for queer life and wellness through nature, spirit, art, culture, and community. The Boylston Black Box allows us to continue to fulfill and further that vision through the building of a Queer (Re)Public,” said Harold Steward, TTO Executive Director and Cultural Strategist.
About The Theater Offensive
The Theater Offensive (TTO) is a social change organization focused on the QTPOC community and their allies that uses theater and the creative process as cultural organizing tools. Our core geographic focus is on the Greater Boston Area; we present local and national artists here in Boston and amplify local artists’ work to queer people of color communities nationally.
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For information:
Cheyenne Myrie (she/her/hers)
Director of Institutional Advancement
The Theater Offensive
(617) 661-1600
Cheyenne@thetheateroffensive.org
Renderings provided by Epstein Joslin Architects. Photos by Rodrigo Larios