ARTIST STATEMENT 2024

VAST 			    Not only is it my life’s motto–it is my mission as an artist. I believe to be 
VAST is to stay gentle, courageous, and true. To create space for others to do the same. I first held this word close as an actress, prior to my transition, when I had grown frustrated and felt small in working environments. At the time this word gave me the strength to take up space and use my voice. And it is in that space that I’ve grow into my artistry. It gave me room to show up as my authentic self. 
VAST. 		       Once my battle cry to take up space 
                       Now a fight song to make that room for others. 
It is an evolution I am dedicated to creating with my work as an actor, DRAGster, playwright, and producer from Baltimore City. I create work that demonstrates trans joy and legacy by and for the trans community. Work that makes euphoria accessible through stories that demonstrate it IS attainable. So, Trans people can look ahead and see a LIFE for themselves and their community in the midst of media… 
                              Signaling that to be Trans is only to be lonely, 
                              unloved, and in pain.
In 2024, I’ve made a pact 
with myself as a Trans theatre artist 
beginning my career in several cultural revolutions. That I will not be hindering any part of my identity to fit or conform. I will no longer wait for the world to catch up to be my fullest self.      
My practice lives in the signposts my peers and I place in that forward motion towards a radically hopeful and curious world. 
Signposts that read, “I’m here!” 		Myself and my peers	 	not only providing care, support, and comradery, 
But collaborating in collective.	 	Change within the theatre.     leaving a path behind.
I feel very passionately about working as a Trans actor in Baltimore City as I’ve observed that most Trans actors and theatre-makers leave Baltimore due to lack of opportunity and the exhaustion of too often being the only gender expansive artist in the room. Therefore, I am taking part in bringing that opportunity to my city. In 2023, I co-produced a semi-devised adaptation of Romeo & Juliet at a small indie theater in Baltimore. The production was a Queer retelling in every sense. From the bodies seen onstage with a Trans Romeo (myself) and a Fat Juliet, to how family is represented, how violence and death are experienced, and how we collectively seek liberation. 
Additionally, I have begun my first full-length play about intergenerational Trans joy between a young man, Ezra, and their estranged elderly Aunt Dana, who up until very recently were both unaware the other was also Trans. Over the course of two days, they come to share moments of affirmation while challenging one another’s perspectives, sharing in the experience of euphoria, and asking: How do we come home to ourselves? 
I create and participate in work that is Queering the system and structure of theatre.	 		
           Challenging 		     all that interact with it to question and engage their relationship 
           to Self. 
As a trans person I feel I’m engaged in an ongoing state of transition, to seek, to find, and to never completely know the answer…	
For it is in the definitive        where         authenticity is lost. 
I believe that through showing up to my craft, collaborators, and the stories we tell with radical authenticity, community is created and little by little culture shifts   			
                                                                              To be VAST.