INDEPENDENT PRODUCING
Proud Voices 2020/2021
A multi-city audio festival, Proud Voices is an interactive event that redefines togetherness by safely celebrating the diversity of queer expression. Proud Voices showcases the beauty and complexity of the LGBTQIA+ community and stimulates the queer economy by highlighting queer-owned/allied businesses through a unique form of community engagement.
In 2021 Proud Voices took place on an international scale in Austin, Brooklyn, and Auckland. In each city the festival was built upon a map of “stops”, each representing a participating queer-owned/allied business. At each of these stops, audience members could access an exclusive QR code that allowed them to stream a song, poem or auditory experience from a local queer artist.
In 2020, the inaugural Proud Voices festival invited participants to take a walk around the iconically queer West Village in New York City, discovering a unique audio track by a BIPOC LGBTQIA+ artist at each of the participating local stops.
The festival was inspired by Pride Month, which was birthed in 1969 at the Stonewall Riot and led by Black and POC queer folks. Our first Proud Voices was aptly a fundraiser two organisations that directly serve the POC queer community. These worthy groups were For the Gworls, House Lives Matter and The Audre Lorde Project.
“Tipping the Velvet” by Laura Wade
In November of 2019, Jillian co-produced an industry reading of “Tipping the Velvet”, a play by Laura Wade based on Sarah Waters’ seminal queer novel of the same name. Incorporating live music, the reading was directed by Billie Aken-Tyers and featured a cast of some of New York’s finest actors, including Kristolyn Lloyd (Dear Evan Hanson) and Nicole Ansari (Daybreak). The team will continue to develop the project and are aiming for a fully realised production in 2020/2021.
“Holy Day” by Andrew Bovell
March 9-24, 2019
In March of 2019, “Holy Day” by Andrew Bovell, had a critically acclaimed run at the New Ohio Theatre in New York City, marking its American premiere. Directed by Barbara Rubin and Heather Benton, it featured an international cast including Indigenous Australian actress Chenoa Deemal. A staggering, deeply moving play, “Holy Day” is set during colonial settlement and depicts some of the darkest moments in Australia’s history. The New Natives have developed the play in the US since 2015 and this fully realised production season represented five years of hard work to get this story told on an international stage.
“Camel” by Charly Clive
April 13-23, 2017
"Camel" is a dark comedy about lost love, definite loss and marijuana. In a small town in suburban America, a town in Virginia, a town with no quarry, Gus Steinem is experiencing loss for the first time. It's been a week since his long estranged high school love, Louie was found dead and even though he hasn't seen her for years, suddenly she's everywhere.
“The First Man” by Wil Hart
September 1-4, 2016
A new play by Wil Hart and directed by Michael Flynn, “The First Man” dives into the lives of three beings at three different moments in time, as their world’s collide, shatter and get pieced back together. The play explores the cycles of the human experience through power, love, sex, religion and the not-knowing. "The First Man" ran at Under St Mark’s in New York City in early September 2016 to sold out audiences.
“Holy Day”
“Camel”
“The First Man”