OUR HOST: Actor Jason Veasey from “Best Medicine” and “A Strange Loop”
PERFORMER: Jackie Cox from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Make Me Gorgeous”
Join us this monday!
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Join us this monday! 〰️
Join us MONDAY NIGHT (FEB 2) from 6:00-9:00 PM at the Laurie Beechman Theatre to celebrate TOSOS
with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres from the West Bank Cafe!
We are so excited to bring you this stellar lineup of performers!
Jason Veasey, Lisa Stephen Friday, Murphy Taylor Smith, Dan Hoy, Bryan Blaskie and the lovely Jackie Cox!
(Read about them below!)
We are proud of our history as NYC’s longest producing LGBTQIA+ theatre company! Please help us continue to serve our community! Become a sustaining member today!
TOSOS HONORED by NYC & NYS governing bodies
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of TOSOS in 1974, we received proclamations from New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, New York State Assembly Member Tony Simone, and New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, whose Chief of Staff, Carl Wilson, presented it to us. Chanel Lopez, Deputy Director of LGBTQ Affairs in the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, joined in the fun with a lovely speech to the crowd. We are over the moon!
Pictured: Mark Finley (Artistic Director), Senator Hoylman-Sigal, Assemblyman Simone, Chanel Lopez, Chris Andersson (Board President)
UPCOMING EVENTS
TOSOS ANNUAL GALA
MON 2 FEB 2026
MAINSTAGE PRODUCTION
OPENING FEBRUARY 2026
Your ticket includes open bar, hors d'oeuvres, and lots of entertainment!
Cocktails and appetizers provided by the West Bank Cafe
If you are unable to attend, please consider buying SPONSOR TICKETS so we can invite artists and key members of the LGBTQIA+ community who may otherwise be unable to attend.
OUR HOST: Actor Jason Veasey
PERFORMER: Jackie Cox
Jason Veasey (he/him/his) is a NYC based actor and singer. He currently appears in the new show “Best Medicine” on Fox and Hulu. Jason created the role of “Thought 5” in the Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning musical A STRANGE LOOP, for which he won the first of two OBIE awards. Jason is recognized for his multi-season arc as “Jonathan” on the hit Hulu series ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, which garnered him a 2024 SAG Award nomination.
Jackie Cox is the stage name of Darius Rose, a Canadian-American drag performer and actor based in New York City, best known for placing 4th/5th on Season 12 of RuPaul's Drag Race. (Jackie is gay and gender-expansive. Out of drag, her pronouns are he/she/they.) As the first Persian-Canadian queen on the show, she is known for incorporating her Iranian heritage into her performance and addressing political issues through drag. She is also recognized for her work in cabaret, theatrical shows like "Make Me Gorgeous," and appearances on TV programs such as What Would You Do? and Days of Our Lives.
PERFORMER: Lisa Stephen Friday
PERFORMER: Murphy Taylor Smith
Lisa Stephen Friday (she/her/hers) is a singer, musician, actor and playwright/composer. Her most notable work is her one-woman musical TRANS AM which had its world premiere at the Keegan Theater in Washington DC in 2022. She is the composer of Doll/Girl, a new musical about the artist Greer Lankton which was commissioned in 2023 with Judson Arts at Judson Memorial Church. She is a 2025 recipient of the FY2025 artist grant through the New York State Council on the Arts. For the 2025-26 season, Lisa has been commissioned by Joe’s Pub and the Public Theater through their New York Voices Program to develop a brand new musical.
Murphy Taylor Smith is an actress and songwriter. She originated roles in A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL (Centre Theatre Group), BILLIE JEAN (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) and DOLL/GIRL (Joe’s Pub). With her twin sister Emerson, she wrote the musicals WATCHDOG, a doppelgänger psychothriller; ELEKTRIC, a trans woman-centered Oresteia; and RADIO: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY, a lesbian horror romance. She and Emerson are 2025/26 Ars Nova Artists-in-Residence, developing their new musical GOOD FRIDAYS. You can listen to her songs on bandcamp.
@msmurphysmith // MurphyTaylorSmith.com
PERFORMER: Dan Hoy
PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY Bryan Blaskie
Dan Hoy (he/him/his) is currently playing Raoul in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s immersive Phantom of the Opera, Masquerade, directed by Diane Paulus. His Broadway credits include Pirates! The Penzance Musical, and Harmony. This fall he played Darcy in the national tour of the new Jane Austen musical, Austen’s Pride. While performing in Masquerade, Dan is simultaneously in law school.
Bryan Blaskie (he/him/his) is a composer, music director, and orchestrator. His original music has been featured on RuPaul’s Drag Race and has been performed across the US in collaboration with organizations such as American Opera Projects, New York Theatre Barn, A Little New Music, and Lincoln Center. Bryan is an advocate of new and innovative musical storytelling with a particular focus on tales of self-empowerment, historical recontextualization, and breaking down of the binary.
OUR HOUSE
By BARRY BOEHM
Directed by MARK FINLEY
OUR HOUSE is about family. In Iowa, the year before marriage equality is recognized by the Supreme Court, Andy, an ACT-Up NY veteran and his husband are to host the wedding of their nephew Brendan to Eugene, who is African-American. The happy occasion is threatened when the young couple venture out into the neighborhood and a confrontation with locals force this modern family to face some hard facts about what it takes to make everyone feel safe in “our house.” It's a hopeful comedy packed with honest truths, similar in style to HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere.”
28 FEB - 21 MAR
at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre
Previews 26, 27 FEB
ASL Performance 12 MAR
A.R.T. New York Theatres
502 W 53rd St, NYC
Join the TOSOS Board, staff and patrons at our annual fundraising gala
Right in the heart of the Theater District!
The evening will include entertainment, presentations, lively discussions and a festive atmosphere!
Monday, February 2nd, 2026
– 6:00pm to 9:00pm –
407 West 42nd St, NYC, NY 10036
(Inside the West Bank Cafe)
DRESS CODE: Fun and Fabulous!
TOSOS IN THE NEWS!
St. Pat’s for All Parade in Queens on March 2, 2025
Article published December 14, 2024. [Photo: Playwright Robert Patrick (“Kennedy’s Children”), playwright Doric Wilson (“West Street Gang”) and playwright Harvey Fierstein (“Torch Song Trilogy”) sitting in front of their show posters at Phebe’s Bar in the East Village, 1982]
Article for Gay City News by our very own Kathleen Warnock!
For 26 years, the St. Pat’s for All (SPFA) Parade in Sunnyside and Woodside has led off St. Patrick’s season in NYC as the first inclusive parade. As the years went by, SPFA led the way for other parades across the city and around the country to open their ranks to include groups from the LGBTQIA+ community.
“Peace and blessings, love and light. Let’s breathe,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams began. “We are in this together. It’s all connected. They are trying to erase us, but we will have no one left behind. Let’s celebrate love, with all the colors.”
For [artistic director Mark] Finley, who has lived “on either side of 10th Avenue” since he moved to the neighborhood in 1994, his association with TOSOS began upon meeting Doric in 1999. “We hung out at the Film Center Cafe until about four in the morning, talking about acting and playwriting and the union and all of this stuff,” said Mark.
“And the next day he called me up and said, ‘I want you to be my director.’ I was like, ‘Would you like to see some of my work?’ and he said, ‘No, no, I don’t need to — you’re doing theater for the right reasons. Lanford Wilson had Marshall Mason. I want you to be my Marshall Mason.’” The offer was “A little intimidating, but that’s our Doric,” laughed Mark. “A little while later, he and Barry Childs and I decided to reboot the original TOSOS company, and here we are — 22 years later!”
RECENT EVENTS
The OGGs in Hoboken
TOSOS Fall Fundraiser & Staged Reading
NOVEMBER 2025
Join us for “The OGGs in Hoboken,” directed by TOSOS Artistic Director Mark Finley and featuring TOSOS Board members Chris Andersson, Chris Weikel and Jamie Heinlein, along with others from the TOSOS family, including Christopher Borg, Pissi Myles, Cat Gillespie, James Patterson, Nathan Nolen Edwards and Sean Patrick Mulroy. 2 nights only.
QUEER SPOOKY SHORTS
OCTOBER 2025
PLAYS
Don't Fuck With The Dead!
by Peter Boruchowitz
The Alexa App
by Joe Godfrey
The Grave
by Nay Harris
Harm To Table
by Joe Moe
The Third Bite
by Duncan Pflaster
The plays were directed by Peter Boruchowitz and Rula A. Muñoz.
OCTOBER 2024
The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS)
presents a mini-tour of
DORIC WILSON’S STREET THEATER
DIRECTORS
Mark Finley & Barry Childs
THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE IS…FIFTY!
SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
WHAT A NIGHT!!!
We brought our TOSOS community together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company’s founding in 1974.
We were honored to receive three proclamations from the offices of NYS Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, NYS Assembly Member Tony Simone and NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher!
We were graced with the presence of Chanel Lopez, Deputy Director of LGBTQ+ Affairs in the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and NYS Assembly Member Landon Dais!
We bestowed the TOSOS Honors Award on our longtime artistic director Mark Finley and managing director Barry Childs, who revived TOSOS in 2002 with the sole surviving original founder, playwright Doric Wilson. They’ve kept the company going for the last 22 years!
We had a blast coming together to salute the company’s place in LGBTQIA+ history, theatre history, New York City history — and all the intersections therein!
Please help us keep the fire burning!
Donate directly to TOSOS!
AUGUST 2024
CHESLEY/CHAMBERS PLAYWRIGHTS PROJECT
presents a reading of
BURNING LEAVES
by TOM ROWAN
Directed by GRAYDON GUND
In need of a fresh start, Matt Leland, a young actor on the run from New York, takes a job teaching at a small high school in the Midwest—where he finds himself feeling unprepared for the unexpected challenges that await. His most talented student is Jesse Wade, a troubled sixteen-year-old on the verge of coming out. Isolated in the small conservative town, Jesse desperately needs a gay role model—and other things Matt may or may not be able to provide. Burning Leaves is a humorous, compassionate play that asks serious questions about education, friendship, and love.
Marching in the 2024 NYC Pride Parade with NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli
Striking a pose in front of The Stonewall Inn!
TOSOS CELEBRATES PRIDE
The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS) celebrates writers — the chroniclers of our diverse collective history — and serves as a curator of the LGBTQ+ theatrical timeline by keeping our theatrical heritage alive and in conversation with the playwrights of today.
Through our mainstage productions and our free reading series, our audiences — and especially our LGBTQ+ youth — can hear the voices of both the past and the present to learn how far we’ve come (or not) as a community. They are given the opportunity to understand the generations who came before us, what life was like for them, and how they fought for the rights and freedoms we have today. At the same time, we give the stage to the writers of the present day who help us understand the continued struggles and incremental triumphs of our community and give us perspective on our collective progress.
Community is big for us. With great joy and good humor, we bring our TOSOS family together at social events like our free play readings and holiday parties. We discuss and debate the art we showcase — to learn from each other and build respect and understanding — and have lots of laughs!
At TOSOS, we embrace our differences. As an LGBTQ+ theater company, we value the diversity of artistic, cultural and life perspectives our artists bring to our stages. As storytellers, we champion the voices that aren’t being heard. As people, we strive toward equality, toward a world where everyone is welcome to the party. Join us!