Celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride In Santa Monica With A One-night-only Theatre Experience

The LGBTQ+ community is and has always been beautiful, diverse, and vibrant. Celebrating Pride and uplifting the stories of LGBTQ+ people is always important - and feels especially urgent today, with debates over equal rights being such a part of the national conversation. And so The Braid, the go-to Jewish story company, has handpicked a collection of true stories about people who are both queer and Jewish.

They will be brought vividly to life by professional actors in a dramatic, soulful, and ultimately triumphant performance in the theatre production OUT LOUD! The show will be in person, one night only, at the Annenberg Community Beach House on Wednesday, June 15, at 7:30pm.

Tickets are $10, and proceeds will be donated to Santa Monica's Trans Equity Scholarship fund, which defrays the cost of legal name and gender marker change application fees for the local trans community. For showtimes and tickets, visit the-braid.org/outloud.

"I am thrilled to host such a stellar company as The Braid at the Annenberg Community Beach House and to welcome theatre artists back to the beach!" raves Clove Galilee, cultural affairs supervisor for the City of Santa Monica. "It is an amazing location, right on the water, and a lovely way to spend a night celebrating PRIDE."

Galilee elaborates how this vibrant partnership between Santa Monica and The Braid began: "Nan Friedman, the manager at the Annenberg Community Beach House, suggested I take a look at the Braid and see what the possibilities were for this year's PRIDE in Santa Monica. I spoke with Ronda Spinak, co-founder and artistic director of The Braid, and we really hit it off. Then Ronda brought Braid creative producer Daphna Shull in, and we had a ball throwing out ideas which eventually came to be OUT LOUD!" Shull is one of several members of the LGBTQ+ community who are involved with the production, and her voice has been vital to ensuring the show stays authentic to the queer community. "As a gay woman myself, I know the stigma and struggle many of us face to be ourselves in the world," Shull remarks. "This show is a beautiful representation of the humanity and heart of the LGBTQ+ community. The power of storytelling, and this show in particular, sheds light on the universality of experiences and empathetic connections we can make when we're open to truly seeing each other."

Another voice comes from actor Michael Gabiano: "There's a fabulous Yiddish word that I often use when speaking of others -often fellow actors, singers, dancers, and other colleagues in the arts: kvelling. It basically means "bursting with pride." This Pride season, I am both proud and honored to be performing in this year's OUT LOUD!"
It was important to Shull and Spinak that OUT LOUD! accurately represent the racial diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. As such, the creative team includes writer Larry Sanders, who is Jewish and of mixed African-American, Choctaw Indian, and Caucasian heritage; writer Matthew Nouriel, who is Persian, Jewish, and non-binary; and actor Victoria Rani, who identifies as a Queer, Mixed-Race Asian American Femme. The cast also includes Vicki Juditz, Benmio McCrea, and AJ Meijer. It will be directed by The Braid's producing director Susan Morgenstern. In addition to the City of Santa Monica and the Annenberg Community Beach house, OUT LOUD! is made possible through partnerships with The Church in Ocean Park and Art Samo.

To learn more about The Braid's origins, mission, and community, visit the-braid.org/about/.