From Executive Producers Sara Bareilles, House of Velour, Soloway Brothers Productions, Kristen Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez!

Diversionary Theatre
in association with
Musical Theatre Factory
presents

Shakina in MANIFEST PUSSY!

A glam-rock fever dream and boundary-pushing hybrid performance film that blurs the lines between rock show, stand-up special, and irreverent ritual sacrifice—written, performed, and produced by Shakina—the film tracks her pilgrimage to Thailand for gender confirmation surgery through electrifying live music, savage humor, and unflinching autobiographical storytelling.

Backed by a live band and fueled by songs from a killer lineup of award-winning musical theatre writers—including Nikko Benson, Julianne Wick Davis, Joe Iconis, Michael R. Jackson, Teresa Lotz, Lauren Marcus, Sam Salmond, Zoe Sarnak, Shaina Taub, and Joel Waggoner—SHAKINA in MANIFEST PUSSY captures a singular artist communing with a live audience in a no-holds-barred celebration of trans embodiment and becoming. 

Produced and directed by Jessica Redish, with musical direction, arrangements, and orchestrations by Jacob Yates, and directed for the stage by Sherri Eden Barber, SHAKINA in MANIFEST PUSSY charts a journey of faith, transformation, and trans liberation, elevating Shakina’s personal mythology into a transcendent collective experience.

In June of 2106 I crowdfunded a tour of Manifest Pussy to North Carolina in protest of their new law, HB2, which removes LGBT people from the state-wide non-discrimination policy and forces transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender marker on their birth certificate.

Check out this short documentary from the tour, filmed and edited by Paul W. Sauline.