Gender Euphoria

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard interviews Des Bennett of The Theater Offensive about the Queer (Re)Public Emergent Artist Residency. Their conversation covers organizational “harvest partnerships,” emergent strategy, queer liberatory aesthetics, and decolonizing the producer-artist relationship.

In this episode, Nicolas talks with lead producer for Chicago’s Trans Voices Cabaret lead producer Kidany Camilo about creating equitable opportunities in musical theatre, showcasing outstanding trans and nonbinary musical talent, and centering joy.

Nicolas talks with Francis Miller about their solo show, Body of the State, which explores access to gender-affirming healthcare and asks the audience to vote on which path the story takes. They discuss how audiences have responded to and taken up that responsibility as the show has evolved.

Nicolas Shannon Savard recounts the evolution of their solo show, Five and a Half Feet of Fearsome, from the original 2018 production to adapting pieces for testimony opposing anti-trans legislation in Ohio to remounting the show in 2025 with a renewed focus on “taking our stories back.”

Ciara Hannon and Saylor Lake return to talk about 11th Hour Productions’ repertoire of lesbian comedies that play with genre, including Mary Kay Vampires, Gay Cowboys, and An Adele Horror Story. Nicolas provides theoretical and historical framing on camp aesthetics in gay and lesbian theatre.

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard interviews Ciara Hannon and Saylor Lake from Orlando-based queer theatre company, 11th Hour Productions. They discuss queer community at the Orlando Fringe and using campy comedy as a mode of resistance in the face of state-level backlash to LGBTQ art in Florida.

In part two of their discussion on The Trans History Project, host Nicolas Shannon Savard and Bo Frazier explore how the initiative is building networks for support for the cohort of playwrights and collaborating with theatres across the US to produce trans stories.

This episode is an interview with Baltimore Center Stage’s artist-in-residence Bo Frazier on the Trans History Project. The conversation covers what the initiative is doing to create counter-narratives in a political moment defined by trans erasure, plus a taste of the first five plays in development.

Nicolas continues their conversation with Keyshia Pearl and Roney Jones, digging into LOUD Queer Youth Theatre’s youth-led, adult-supported program model and how the ensemble provides long-term community, and artistic and professional development for Black and indigenous trans and queer youth.

Gender Euphoria: The Podcast returns for season three. Host Nicolas Shannon Savard interviews Miss Keyshia Pearl and Roney Jones of LOUD Queer Youth Theatre about the ensemble’s programming, devising practices, and political education with Black and Indigenous trans and queer youth in New Orleans.

Dr. H. May joins host Nicolas Shannon Savard, who introduces the Queer-Trans Performance Family Tree Project, an interactive, open-access digital exhibit visually connecting trans artists across the United States to the collectives and communities who have sustained our work. This episode explores the role of mentorship in both the research for the project and in their own work as gender nonconforming theatremakers.

What role does white supremacy play in the creation of the queer theatre canon? What power and what responsibility do we—as queer theatremakers, historians, and educators—have to challenge canons and archives that define “queer” almost exclusively as white and cisgender? Artist-scholars Janet Werther, Victoria LaFave, Jordan Ealey, David Silvernail, and Kelli Crump join host Nicolas Shannon Savard to tackle these questions and to queer the archive.

Austin’s pop princess, p1nkstar, shares the story of her evolution from performance artist creating a pop star persona for Instagram to real life pop star to community leader creating spaces for fellow trans artists to showcase their work in Texas. This episode also features guest co-host Melissa Lin Sturges, coordinator of the annual Doric Wilson Panel for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) LGBTQ+ Focus Group.

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard, Dr. H. May, and Dr. Liz Thomson discuss the creative and collaborative possibilities that emerge when audio description (AD) is made an integral part of the artistic process, as opposed to solely an accommodation for individual audience members. They critique traditional models of AD that demand objectivity and propose alternative approaches that embrace self-determination, specificity of lived experience, and universal design.

J.C. Pankratz returns to the podcast to reflect on the first full production of their play Seahorse, directed by Nicolas Shannon Savard, starring Emmett Podgorski. Nicolas, J.C., and Emmett discuss how the collaborative process, from auditions through closing night, was informed by queer community building, access intimacy, and consent-based practice. They offer behind-the-scenes perspectives and concrete examples of how tools and ideas discussed in previous episodes played out in practice.

Nicolas Shannon asks Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz how their intimacy work is informed by queer theory and critical theory. Their conversation bounces between queer of color theory, decolonial theory, disability theory, and the dim glow of the night club; between past, present, and future; between the ideas they’re sure of and the ones they’re working out in real time. Bonus! It comes with dozens of recommended readings.

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard and playwright Leanna Keyes discuss her play "Doctor Voynich and Her Children". What does it mean to stage trans stories about queer motherhood, abortion, intimacy, choice, and power in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing legislative attacks on reproductive rights and the trans community?

In the first part of a two-part conversation on queer-trans intimacy direction and choreography, Nicolas talks with Theatrical Intimacy Education faculty members Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz about their courses Working with Trans & Non-Binary Artists and Staging Intimacy Beyond the Binary. They discuss crafting courses that are less Trans-101 and more cracking gender open, resisting patriarchal and colonialist scripts, and bringing queer culture into the rehearsal room.

Host, Nicolas Shannon Savard interviews playwright J.C. Pankratz about their play, "Seahorse", a poetic, stream-of-consciousness one-person show about a trans man’s attempts at artificial insemination following his husband’s unexpected death. The conversation will dive into the play’s approach to the “messiness” of imagining futures you can’t yet see and its use of magical realism to invite audiences to sit inside that mess as witnesses and confidants.

Host Nicolas Shannon Savard talks with Dr. Jesse O’Rear about applied theatre with LGBTQ students on college campuses. Jesse describes some alternatives to traditional models of bystander intervention and diversity trainings to create embodied learning opportunities for LGBTQ students to step into positions of leadership and for audience-participants to practice “kinesthetic allyship.”