FREE FIRST THURSDAY - June 6, 2024

Amanda Shea (she/her) is the 2022 & 2023 Boston Music Awards Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Shea is an artist, performer, educator, artivist, co-founder, publicist, host, and curator. She has hosted and produced numerous intergenerational poetry/hip hop events as well as performed at festivals; including Boston Calling, BAMSFest (Boston Art & Music Soul Festival), and the Jos Literary Festival in Nigeria. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Globe, TEDX, TEDXRoxbury, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, and much more. Shea will be releasing her first book, Pieces of Shea and her first EP titled, God, Again in the Spring of 2024. Amanda's work examines her personal life experiences, social justice issues, and healing through trauma utilizing art as the tool.

Des Bennett (they/them) is a cultural worker whose practice emphasizes creativity and storytelling as central to community care, social wellness, and QTBIPOC+ liberation. They are a collage artist, zine maker, drag performer, dramaturg, director, facilitator, fiber artist, and producer currently working as the Queer (Re)Public Programs Manager at The Theater Offensive. Des is a co-leader of Gender Explosion, a coalition of trans artists across the country empowering, advocating for, and creating space for trans artists in the performing arts sector, and has led trans inclusion workshops in Boston and on Broadway. Their recent directing work includes: The Interrobangers (Assoc. Dir., Company One); Grief Love (Co-Conceiver & Dir.); True Colors Troupe (TTO); we and other goddexxes (C1); Sunday Swings an Old-New Gospel (Huntington); Common Ground: Revisited (Ass. Dir., Hunt.); My Body Is a A Season (SpeakEasy); and Scenes From Metamorphoses (Northeastern University). They have held Research Assistantships with Dani Snyder-Young PhD on her projects, Theatre participation and arts-integrated peer leadership in substance addiction recovery processes (2019) and Digital performance, wellness, and equity (2020), and contributed to Procedurally authored performances of mindful practice: Theatre-for-one, audience labor and self-optimization (TDR, 2022). Des holds a BA in Theater and a minor in Psychology from Northeastern University.

Allegra Fletcher is an Afro Caribbean Latina artist, educator, published scholar, and cultural strategist. She enjoys exploring ways to decolonize expressions of faith, knowledge, and cultural production, and aims to cultivate spaces where others can do the same. Her most recent work, a self published book of poetry, song, and reflective exercises called "Daisy Chains", is now available as an ebook. You can follow her journey on Instagram: @allegrafletcher

Eddie Maisonet is an afroboricua, disabled, queer, trans, Boston-based storyteller, facilitator and audio describer. He uses hybrid forms of essay, poetry, and spoken word to tell his own stories about growth, family, and community. There is also a poetic foundation in his culturally-responsive audio description work he does with Think Outside the Vox, an organization that “focuses on widening the breadth and scope of accessible programming by facilitating the hiring of disabled and marginalized artists and experts." He was a two time Theater Offensive OutHood Resident Artist, leading or co-leading collaborative storytelling projects about Boston’s gentrification. 

Follow him on Instagram: @eddieMStoryteller

Rayven, DJ RAYVINO, is a Dorchester native creative who is dedicated to making safe spaces for Black trans femmes and bringing people together through the power of connection, community, and love using music! As a Black non-binary femme-presenting person that lives in a huge city, they find that there are a lack of spaces for people like them. DJ RAYVINO’s intention behind curating and deejaying is to create a harm and judgment-free safe space for Black non-binary people & femmes to have fun. Their purpose is to prove to people and cities worldwide that there is a market for Black non-binary femmes and that they exist!