OUR MISSION:
To create possibility models for transgender youth and make sure that every youth has a supportive adult in their life. Using theatre to compel change and create empathy in cisgender adults, Uprising Theatre Company connects art to action. Through our work we increase access in theatre for transgender and nonbinary playwrights and artists.
OUR WHY:
Nicole Martins, a researcher from Indiana University says, “There’s this body of research… a term known as ‘symbolic annihilation,’…if you don’t see people like you in the media… you must somehow be unimportant.”
This lack of media representation of transgender lives and experiences compounds the already dire circumstances that transgender people (especially youth) find themselves in.
This doesn’t only affect transgender people: GLAAD media says that only 16% of people actually know someone who is transgender. Which means that non-transgender people are getting the majority of their education about transgender lives from media as well.
But what if it were different?
What if, instead of endless stories of tragedy for transgender people…instead of transgender people being portrayed as liars or hard to love…instead of death we provided stories of transgender people that were filled with hope, possibilities, and most of all, a future?
OUR HOW:
Uprising Theatre Company is stepping into this gap. piloting a new model for theatre.
Uprising does four things:
1: high quality theatre by transgender and nonbinary playwrights featuring transgender actors in many roles.
2: We use that theatre to inspire conversations.
3: Those conversations move to action by our partnerships with community organizations who make a direct ask of the audience so they can get involved on site.
4: Finally we do education that equips and empowers people from marginalized communities to better tell their own stories. That education includes playwright development, commissioning new work, and intensive training for both transgender actors and technical staff.
Our belief is that more stories told by transgender people about their own lives will change not just the sense of possibility for trans people and give them a sense of hope but will also educate a non-transgender audience which will influence policy, education, and more.
Uprising Theatre channels art to action and writes new futures for us all.