This Sunday, November 16, 2025 from 5–7PM, TRUSpeak… Hear Our Voices! 2025 announces special appearances by Emmy and Oscar winner Allison Janney, Tony winner Joanna Gleason and transgender activist Shakina Nayfack. TRUSpeak is a fundraiser for Theater Resources Unlimited: an evening of short plays adapted and filmed for virtual presentation, followed by a virtual after-party where attendees can meet the creative teams. Admission price is a donation and may be fully tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Joanna Gleason has appeared in fifteen Broadway and Off-Broadway and Off-off Broadway shows (including Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels, Joe Egg, The Real Thing, I Love My Wife, Nick and Nora), winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, as well as three Drama Desks, and two Outer Critics’ nominations and wins.

Allison Janney won an Oscar for I, Tonya, 4 Emmys for The West Wing, another Emmy for Masters of Sex, and two 2 more for Mom, and is currently guest starring in the Netflix series The Diplomat; She made her Broadway debut in a revival of Present Laughter and received two Drama Desk awards and two Tony nominations for A View from the Bridge revival, and the musical 9 to 5.

Shakina Nayfack was a founding member and artistic director of New York’s Musical Theatre Factory, appeared as Lola the “trans-truther” on TV’s Difficult People, and was the first trans person to have a starring role on a major network comedy show, Connecting; she was a recipient of the TRU Humanitarian Award for her advocacy work for the trans community.

TRUSpeak, last presented in 2023, returns with a previously announced star-studded cast that includes Tony winner Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam), Tony nominees Veanne Cox (Company) and Sky Lakota-Lynch (The Outsiders), as well as Tony winner Cady Huffman (The Producers) now behind the scenes as producer of one of the evenings four films. Notably, this marks an onscreen reunion of Pinkins and Cox who appeared memorably together in the award-winning Broadway musical Caroline, or Change in 2003. Rounding out the lineup is Elizabeth Teeter, currently appearing off-Broadway in Heathers: The Musical, and other familiar faces from stage, film and TV including Stephen Fries, Wesley Han, Kiana Kabeary, Dick Monday, Jon Okabayashi, Mike Roche, Lori Vega and Stephen Woosley.

The event is executive produced by Bob Ost, Carley Santori, and Janel C. Scarborough. Tamra Pica is the TRU technical director, and Gary Hughes is the event designer. TRU gives thanks to SAG-AFTRA for enabling them to produce TRUSpeak using the micro-budget agreement which makes it possible to use the talented union actors who perform in these films.

TRUSpeak Lineup

PYOTR & DMITRI by Clinton Festa

Soviet suppression nearly silenced the music. The ghost of Tchaikovsky appears to a desperate Shostakovich in an artistic dance of survival, directed by Kingsley Lims Nyarko and produced by Amy Drake. Starring Douglas Fries (Showdown in Amherst; The Wizard of Oz at Emery Theatre; The Rows at HorrorHound Festival), and Stephen Woosley (Safety State at Cannes Film Festival, as well as hundreds of stage plays all over Columbus, Ohio; president of O.G.P. Theatre; co-host of It’s All Been Trekked Before podcast).

Director of Photography: Andrew Collins

Editors: Ernest K., Kingsley Lims Nyarko

Assistant Producer: Patrick Thibodeaux

Script Supervisor: Regan Jordan

Sound: Amene Alshaer

Set Dressing: Gaynelle Sloman

Production Design: Ross Osterholt

SAFE HARBOR by James McLindon

Life, death and the Texas legislature. A doctor and a hospital attorney clash over the fate of a young, endangered mother. Directed by Megan Hess and produced by Tony winner Cady Huffman. Starring Veanne Cox (Tony nominee for Company; TV appearances in Only Murders in the Building; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; and The First Anti-Vaxxers in 2022 TRUSpeak), Tonya Pinkins (Tony winner for Jelly’s Last Jam; Tony nominee for Caroline, or Change; filmmaker/producer of Red Pill; host of the podcast You Can’t Say That!), and Kiana Kabeary (Empire Off-Broadway).

Director of Photography: Jeanette Bears

Editor: Carley Santori

Co-producer: Wendy Waring

Sound: Ryan Alberti

Sound design: Dennis Dembeck

Production Designer: Scotty Salame

Costumes: Donald Sanders

RECKONER by Scott C. Sickles

When words fail the consequences can be explosive. A violent day of reckoning for a young trans girl and her family, directed by Janet Bentley and produced by Carolyn M. Brown. Starring Wesley Han (TV: Russian Doll, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens; Moon Bear at The Public Theater), Jon Okabayashi (FBI: Most Wanted, Poker Face; SUMO at La Jolla Playhouse; Twelfth Night, and TRUSpeak playwright Scott Sickles’ Marianas Trench), Mike Roche (Doubt, The Father at Actors Studio; The Hook (Brave New World Rep); Drama Desk Award winner and Lori Vega (Downstate at Playwrights Horizons, The Scream Inside; TV: Pretty Little Liars, And Just Like That, FBI).

Director of Photography: Andy Evan Cohen

Editor: Joshua Hernandez-Santora

RIDING LESSONS by Brett Hursey

Boy meets girl meets clown. A three-part duet of self-acceptance directed by Misti B. Wills and produced by Mike Katona. Starrng Sky Lakota-Lynch (Tony nominee The Outsiders; Dear Evan Hansen; Marvel’s Iron Fist; Netflix’s Spirit Rangers), Elizabeth Teeter (off-Broadway’s Heathers: The Musical; Broadway Beetlejuice, The Crucible, The Audience and Mary Poppins; AUDELCO nominated The Secret Life of Bees), and Dick Monday (Director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Clown College; Big Apple Circus; co-founder, The Laughter League).

Director of Photography: Christopher Smith

Editor: Matthew Brennan

Assistant Director: Kayla Katona

Production Coordinator: Rachel Bass

Sound: Eliza Carlisle

Assistant Camera: Luka Vonier

Background: Max Reihs

Hair and Makeup: Rachel Toledo

Production Assistants: Jay Chacon, Max Reihs

Visual Effects: Jack Bellomo, John Laidlaw

Music: Brian Katona

Graphic Design: Kristen Thompson

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-two-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings about the arts, and monthly Town Halls about current social issues; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and a series of Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices (adapting short plays into films), Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.

#