Still We Rise: Barrier Free Living Celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride Month through Music, Literature & Performance

HOSTED by Scott Hess & Amanda Miller

FEATURING:
JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL
John co-created Hedwig and the Angry Inch (two Tony Awards, Best Director at Sundance, Golden Globe nomination). He directed Shortbus (2006); Rabbit Hole (2010) (Oscar nom for Nicole Kidman) and How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2018). He currently appears on Hulu’s Shrill and CBS’s The Good Fight. His musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus stars Glenn Close, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Erivo, Denis O’Hare, Laurie Anderson and Marion Cotillard. He will be touring The Origin of Love: The Songs and Stories of Hedwig next year. originoflovetour.com

SHA SAVAGE
Native to the New York City Area, Sha Savage is a DJ trained to rock parties with her eclectic mixing style ranging from Top 40, House, Funk and Hip Hop. DJ Sha Savage is a free spirited, high energy musical curator, ready to “turn up” your next event! shasavage.com

LEE GRANE
Lee Grane is a Singer/Songwriter from the Philippines whose voice and music evokes an ethereal quality that has the ability to transport and captivate listeners deeply into the heart of sound. She was a part of the first season of ABS CBN’s franchise of The Voice of the Philippines, becoming a worldwide twitter-trending topic in 2013. Her debut single “Sana” which was released through Spinnr Music earned her a nomination for “Indie Artist of the Year 2014”.  leegranemusic.com

ERIC HOLM
Eric Holm is a multidisciplinary songwriter and theater-maker trained in Minneapolis and New York, based in New Orleans, and quarantined with his family in South Dakota. Holm writes ‘radical queer country music’ (see the self-titled debut album), creates/directs/produces theater, and, as Teacher Eric, he makes music for very young people and their grownups.

JAMIE BRICKHOUSE
Called a “natural raconteur” by the Washington Post, Jamie Brickhouse is the New York Times published author of Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother, has appeared on PBS-TV’s Stories from the Stage, The Moth Podcast, Risk! Podcast, Story Collider Podcast, is a 4-time Moth StorySLAM champ, National Storytelling Network Grand Slam champion, and recorded voice-overs on Beavis and Butthead. He tours two award-winning, critically-acclaimed solo shows, Dangerous When Wet, based on his memoir, and I Favor My Daddy, based on his forthcoming memoir. jamiebrickhouse.com

T. WISE
T. Wise, is a writer, lyricist, comedian, and educator based in Brooklyn. T is a question asker, a rabble rouser, and a lobbyist for big love. thatboyblue.com

SARA GERARD
Sarah Gerard is the author, most recently, of the novel True Love. Her essay collection Sunshine State was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her novel Binary Star was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a best-book-of-the-year at NPR, Vanity Fair, and Buzzfeed. Her short stories, essays, and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, T Magazine, Granta, The Baffler, The Believer, Vice, Electric Literature, and the anthologies We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism, and Tampa Bay Noir. sarah-gerard.com

CYNTHIA MANICK
Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016) and editor of Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation (Jamii Publishing, 2019). cynthiamanick.com

CHRISTOLA PHOENIX
Born in Harlem Hospital in 1946, Christola Phoenix worked for thirty-four years at Harlem Hospital Medical Center. She retired from her position at Harlem Hospital as Nurse Manager of the Post Anesthesia Care Unit in 2011. Upon her retirement at age sixty-five, she enrolled at the Gotham Writer’s Workshop Memoir class and began writing her memoir. Having been born, bread, roasted and toasted in Harlem, Paper Curls and Peanut Earrings is a coming of age memoir in Harlem which tells her stories of: poverty, early childhood physical and sexual abuse, teenage motherhood, her journey to get her education. With determination, perseverance, and human angels in her life, she breaks her family’s cycle of poverty. She lives to tell her story. christolaphoenix.com

With special thanks to Greta Rosenstock for her help with tech, as well as BFL Staff Members Cynthia Amodeo & Sara Eldridge.

Event Date: June 17, 2020