Giselle Byrd has become the first Black trans woman to lead a regional US theater organization, stepping into the role of Executive Director for The Theater Offensive. 

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, with a name commonly shortened to TTO, the Theater Offensive states its purpose on their website as being “to present liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression.”

The woman and the organization are well matched. Byrd, at age 31, draws on experience (as listed in her profile on TTO’s website) in production, fundraising, and script coverage. Most often specified, however, has been her work in casting and talent management. While a student at Savannah College of Art and Design (eventually graduating with a BFA in performing arts in 2014), she served in the school’s Casting Office, and subsequently was an apprentice for Laura Stanczyk casting. Thereafter, she took a job as a talent manager at the Katz Company, where for nine years she charted the paths of musicians, actors, activists, and other creators. Now, even with her newly-assumed Executive Directorship, she serves on the boards of multiple organizations which serve the LGBTQ+ community, all in New York: the Ali Forney Center, which seeks to aid queer young people suffering homelessness; the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, described by NYC-Arts as “the first gay art museum in the world”; and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, which focuses on providing proper health care services to LGBTQ+ folk regardless of their ability to pay. 

Meanwhile, TTO has been lauded both for its contributions to the theater and for its work advancing the rights of LBGTQ+ individuals. In 2016, its program True Colors: Out Youth Theater was one recipient of the 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards, while as long ago as 1997, the organization’s founder Abe Rybeck won the 1997 Peace and Justice Award from the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for having “opened Cambridge to gay political theater.” 

Her new role is one that Byrd takes quite seriously.

“I’ve said this before, and I believe it heavily: heavy weighs the crown,” Byrd said. “We need to show the world what queer and trans folks of color have always brought to the culture[,] now more than ever, at a time when our whole existence is at stake.”

Byrd is not being hyperbolic. In a Nov. 2023 report, the Human Rights Campaign stated that more than 550 bills designed to attack the LGBTQ+ community had been submitted to state legislatures, with more than 220 specifically concerning transgender individuals. (A previous North Star piece on Dylan Mulvaney, a trans model, quoted an anonymous Niles North student who spoke of the fear this violence generated. Anyone who has been targeted for their gender identity, or knows someone who has, can anonymously report this to the Niles North tip line at 847-626-2308.)

Regarding Byrd’s milestone, Andrew Sinclair, Niles North’s Fine and Applied Arts Director, made a remark.

“It also doesn’t surprise me, because if you look at the last 75 years of any civil rights movement, including now for the LGBTQ+ community, art is where it starts,” Sinclair said. “If you want change in the world, I’m a firm believer of ‘look at the artist, look at the creators in the world, because they often are the first to put up a mirror that makes society make changes.”

Indeed, making changes is at the top of Byrd’s list. When asked where she hoped the state of QTPOC (Queer Trans People Of Color) representation in theater would be in ten years, she answered, “I hope we’ve taken it over. I hope that we’ve reclaimed our space. We no longer need to be the special select item in the theatrical season….we’re the casting directors, we’re the performers. We need to inhabit every role in this industry.” 

“I hope everyone wakes up to the brilliance of queer and trans folks of color,” Byrd said. “We’ve always been here. We can be leaders, we have intellect. We have the innate ability to organize and to rally and bring communities together. We brought so much to the culture for over hundreds of thousands of years. We know what to do, and we know how to do it extremely well.”

Byrd entered the world of theater at a young age.

“I did my first show when I was 11,” Byrd said. “Up until then I [thought] from the age of about nine to 11 [that] I was going to be a concert violinist. I was really honing in, but there was something that always drew me to theater, telling those stories, going through a shared experience with strangers in a room for a certain designated amount of time. Performance is liberating. And self-liberation is the greatest gift you can give yourself.” 

In her new role, Byrd has grand plans for TTO–which, at the same time as she’s been hired, is currently at work creating the Boyleston Black Box, the largest theater in the world to be owned and run by queer, trans people of color.

“When this theater is open, we’re not going to be just the theater,” Byrd said. “We’re going to be an art gallery where the artwork of our local and global queer and trans folks of color can be shown on our walls and displayed. It’s going to be a safe space for our youth to share their truth, and create new stories for us to tell in this world. It can be a vaccination site, it will be an HIV/AIDS testing center on certain days, hopefully partnering with local healthcare organizations because the HIV/AIDS epidemic rate is still high in our communities of color.” 

The future Byrd imagines is especially impressive given a little context. “Our theater is going to be built in what was once a queer and trans nightclub,” Byrd explained. “When it closed, [the] community lost a gathering spot. And so now here we are, decades later, able to reinhabit that space and give it a renaissance, a rebirth.”

Byrd was asked if she had anything she wanted trans kids of color today to know.

“Trust your heart,” Byrd said. “This transition is for you. Not for anyone else. You know your truth. Know that no matter what your circumstance is, there are people in this world who need your life force, who need the change that you will  bring and who will love you unconditionally. We need you. We want to see you grow and thrive and build your own legacy.”