TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014. Come celebrate the second anniversary of TELL!

My Passion is the theme of the twenty-first installment of TELL. Featuring Aviya Eschenazi, Tanisha Thompson, Jess Tell, and Jacob Tobia.

$10 suggested donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD. Check her out online!  www.draecampbell.com

Aviya Eschenazi also goes by “Vi” and is a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence BA Theater program.
She has performed her poetry, monologues, and stories in Spanish, French, and Italian. She has narrated stories for a live online news broadcast called Wochit.
Her passion is finding strength in odd identities, as she feels she has been too many at once!
Growing up queer in a family of Colombian, Jewish, Italian, and Israeli-Egyptian immigrants, her work is always about finding root in the right ground. Her writing often deals with Jewish Orthodoxy, drug addiction, and having been a young gay boy who is now a proud gay girl.
She is most obsessed with lesbian history, poetry, and spaces around the world.

Jess Tell loves dad jokes & complicated multi-ingredient desserts. Jess grew up in Pittsburgh with a wacky queer family of two lesbians, a flaming queen, nine cats & a rotating cast of hippies & burnouts. Jess moved to NY in 2003; he throws dinner parties, fanboys for Brooklyn Transcore projects, sits on fashion panels & match-makes people to poems. Jess currently runs the meals program at the Ali Forney Center, an organization that supports homeless & vulnerable LGBTQ youth.

Tanisha Thompson is a Brooklyn based performer. Most recently performed in the OBIE award winning Fire This Time Festival plays Slavesperience, (Stacey Rose)Time in the Penn(Keelay Gibson), and You Mine, (Nia Witherspoon). As a member of the Hotel Savant Theatre Co. her roles include Dryope in Men Go Down- Part 3 (PS 122) and Alas, the Nymphs… (BAM Next Wave Festival 2015), Fury #2 in Funeral Games (The Public Theater), The Shady Maids of Haiti (Walker Space) and the title role of Mercurious (HERE). Other roles include, Richmond in Richard III (Judith Shakespeare Co.), Josie in “The Skriker” (WOW Café), and Moll a swashbuckling prostitute Moll in “The Roaring Girl”. She has also collaborated with Michelle Matlock (The Mammy Project), Lee Frisari(sez.me) and Becca Blackwell (Untitled Feminist Show), on an exploration of gender, race and punk rock in the piece Sum of Us at (Dixon Place).

Jacob Tobia is a leading voice for genderqueer, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming folks, ensuring that everyone is able to live their truth and feel their cute.

In 2014, Jacob made their debut on the national stage when they were interviewed by Laverne Cox as part of MTV’s The T Word, and in 2015, Jacob was profiled by MTV in an hour-long episode of True Life: I’m Genderqueer. A Point Foundation Scholar, Harry S. Truman Scholar, and recipient of the Campus Pride National Voice and Action Award, Jacob has captivated audiences at college campuses, national conferences, and corporate events across the country with their message of gender empowerment and social change. Their writing and advocacy have been featured on MSNBC, MTV, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Jezebel, among others.

Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, Jacob currently lives in Brooklyn and has worn high heels in the White House twice.