we create ourselves. we create our belonging. we create our freedom.
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Devised Dispersion
Theatre:
A Collective New Works Incubator
Devised Dispersion Theatre is a collective new works incubator developing original theatrical works created by the Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming (BTGNC) community and our allies across every Underground Rainbow Experiment (URE) chapter. Through devised theatre and interdisciplinary performance, the incubator creates new works that center community voice, lived experience, collective authorship, and creative ownership.
Emerging theatre artists gain hands-on experience creating work for live audiences while collaborating with experienced mentors and artists across URE’s chapter network. Participants build skills in writing, performance, music, design, production, and collaborative creation, taking an original work from concept development through performance. Every participant receives a professional production credit for their contribution to the final work. Artists who contribute to the development of a production also receive access to an evenly divided royalty pool from performance proceeds, allowing creators to share in the ongoing value generated by the work they collectively create.
Each cycle follows a structured production timeline with clearly defined milestones. A selected story framework serves as the foundation for the process, with artists contributing their individual disciplines, perspectives, and lived experiences to collectively develop the final production. Virtual collaboration tools connect artists across chapters, while local partnerships provide on-the-ground rehearsal and production support.
Every cycle culminates in an original production performed across participating chapters. As URE expands, the incubator expands alongside it, creating opportunities for more BTGNC artists in more communities while building a sustainable ecosystem for Black TransGNC-led theatre.
Growth & Development
As URE grows from a regional organization into a multi-chapter network, Devised Dispersion Theatre will become a central pipeline for developing new Black Trans-led theatrical works across our communities. Each new chapter creates an opportunity to identify local artists, stories, collaborators, and cultural partners who can contribute to the development of new work.
To support this growth, URE will establish a Concept Development Committee made up of artists, community members, theatre practitioners, and cultural workers from across our chapters. The committee will work alongside URE’s Artistic Director and leadership to identify relevant subject matter, develop story frameworks, and ensure that new theatrical works remain responsive to our collective lived experiences.
Devised Dispersion Theatre will create a growing body of original works that can be produced, adapted, toured, and archived across URE chapters and around the world. The incubator will serve not only as a theatre program, but as an archive of Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming experiences—in our own words—and a professional development and economic opportunity pipeline for Black Trans theatre artists.
Chapter-Based Production Model
Each participating chapter will receive dedicated funding to develop and produce its regional iteration of the annual work. The investment is structured in two stages:
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$12,000 — Concept Development: Supports research, community engagement, Concept Development Committee participation, collaborative writing, story development, artist convenings, mentorship, and early creative development.
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$25,000 — Production Development: Supports artist compensation, rehearsal, direction, design, music, movement, production management, technical development, performance, documentation, and other production costs.
Total investment: $37,000 per chapter, per show.
This model allows each chapter to develop work that is locally grounded while remaining connected to a shared URE artistic framework.
It also creates a scalable funding structure:
as URE establishes new chapters, each chapter represents a new opportunity to commission, develop, and produce Black Trans-led theatre.
Five-Year Growth Plan
URE plans to expand Devised Dispersion Theatre incrementally alongside the growth of its chapter network:
Year | Participating Chapters | Show Runs | Investment |
|---|---|---|---|
2026 | Bay Area + Los Angeles | 2 | N/A |
2027 | Bay Area + Los Angeles + Maryland | 3 | $111,000 |
2028 | Bay Area + Los Angeles + Maryland + North Carolina | 4 | $148,000 |
2029 | Bay Area + Los Angeles + Maryland + North Carolina + Texas | 5 | $185,000 |
2030 | Bay Area + Los Angeles + Maryland + North Carolina + Texas + New York | 6 | $222,000 |
By 2030, Devised Dispersion Theatre aims to support six chapter-based productions annually, creating a national network for Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming new work.
Fundraising Ask
URE is seeking $37,000 per chapter, per newly developed theatrical work through Devised Dispersion Theatre.
The $37,000 investment supports the complete development of a regional production, beginning with concept development and collaborative writing and continuing through rehearsal, production, performance, documentation, and artist support.
Funders may choose to support an individual chapter, an entire annual production cycle, or the multi-year expansion of the incubator. At full 2030 scale, URE anticipates a $222,000 annual investment to support six chapter-based productions.
This funding model is designed not only to produce performances, but to build infrastructure for Black Trans-led theatre. Every investment helps compensate the writers, performers, musicians, designers, directors, and production artists who create the work while giving participating artists professional production credits and co-writers a pathway to share in the ongoing economic life of their work through an evenly divided royalty pool from performance proceeds.
We invite funders and cultural partners to invest in Devised Dispersion Theatre as an investment in new work, artist development, creative ownership, cultural preservation, and the future of Black Trans-led theatre. Supporting a production means supporting the artists who create it; and helping build a theatre ecosystem where Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming people are not simply represented onstage, but are resourced as authors, producers, and owners of our stories.
The First Time I Saw Me: Stories of Black Trans Emergence (TFTISM)
2026 Beta Inaugural Production
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The First Time I Saw Me: Stories of Black Trans Emergence, co-presented by The Underground Rainbow Experiment (URE) and BAMBDCDC Oakland, is a collectively authored choreopoem created by URE and written by more than ten Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming (BTGNC) writers from across the African Diaspora.
Blending mixed media, movement, and oral tradition, the piece serves as a time capsule of BTGNC realities and autoluminescence, the practice of creating boundless futures through our lived, learned, and ancestral light.
All URE ticket proceeds support the Blue Roots Residency, a short-term guaranteed income and wayfinding program for BTGNC kin.
Ticket Information
Community Rate: $15
General Admission: $30
Livestream: $10
TWWF is an original musical theater project that reimagines the story of Mary and Jesus through a Black Trans and Gender Nonconforming liberatory lens. Rather than receiving a divine pregnancy, Mary receives a divine concept; J.E.S.U.S.: Justice, Empathy, Support, Understanding, and Sensuality. Leaving behind a life that denies their humanity, Mary redesigns themself as Mars and begins sharing the teachings of J.E.S.U.S., rooted in the belief that love is freedom through understanding and acceptance of oneself and others. Through kinship, organizing, and resistance, Mars and the disciples cultivate a community grounded in collective liberation.
Developed over a year-long writing, composition, and workshop process, The Word Was Freedom will move through narrative development, rehearsal laboratories, staged readings, and workshop performances before culminating in developmental productions across URE's anchor chapters. The project demonstrates the incubator's long-term vision of producing ambitious, community-authored theatrical works that invest in local creative ecosystems while advancing new models of Black Trans storytelling.
The Word Was Freedom (TWWF)
2027 Development Cycle