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.

Origin Stories is the theme of the twenty-third installment of TELL. Featuring Bobby Hankinson, Winter Laike, Victoria Libertore, and Parrish Turner.

$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.

Brooklyn-based writer and comedian Bobby Hankinson is the host and producer of monthly LGBTQ comedy and storytelling show Kweendom. He’s immersed himself in the queer experience as a columnist for leading LGBTQ website Towleroad.com, as a nationally touring member of “Awkward Sex and the City” storytelling troupe and by banging dudes on the regular. His writing has also appeared in The Boston Globe, The Houston Chronicle and Brokelyn.com.

Winter Laike is a queer musician, storyteller, son, brother, future boyfriend, and less-notably Original Plumbing’s 2013 Mr. Transman NYC. His most recent work includes a collection of songs based on Craigslist missed connections, a rock opera inspired by a series of dreams, and television recaps for Vulture.com. When he’s not writing music, Winter enjoys riding his bike, making not-your-mother’s Rice Krispie treats, playing with puppies, and eating all of the pizza and donuts and ice cream.

VICTORIA LIBERTORE is a performer, writer, teacher, emcee and curator.  She is the creator of seven solo shows: Camille: The Forgotten Artist, stalk(her), The Should Dream, My Journey of Decay, GIRL MEAT, No Need for Seduction and This Is My Last Attempt At Fame.  She has collaborated with Jennifer Tuttle, Ryan Kipp, Leigh Fondakowski, Rosalie Purvis, Jen-Scott Mobley, Shelley Butler-Hyler, Ryan Migge, Rebecca Feldman, Kimberly I. Kefgen, and Sara Laudonia.  She has performed her work throughout NYC over the last 18 years in venues such as Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Carolines on Broadway, Dixon Place, Joyce Soho, New Dance Alliance, PS122 as well as in Boston, Chicago, Hastings, Montreal, Philadelphia, Provincetown, Toronto and Washington, D.C.  Libertore teaches workshops in NYC and at colleges across the country on how to make your own original performance incorporating intuition, movement and archetypes.  Libertore is passionate about encouraging other artists to create their own work and has curated dozens of local and a few international artists with backgrounds in performance, variety arts, music, comedy and dance.  She has emceed in clubs, at events, on the boardwalk, in parks and at private parties as a faux Liza Minnelli where she utilizes her improvisational skills to make “people laugh so hard that their faces hurt.”  She was a Humana Festival finalist for her short play Monster and Lola.  Libertore was a 2008 – 2010 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Theater Artist in Residence and she has a BFA in theatre from Otterbein University where she recently received a Young Alumni Award for Creative Achievement.  She is currently working on her first book entitled Should I Do My Laundry or Crawl into an Open Grave?  A Guide for Living.  www.howlingvic.com

Parrish Turner is the kind of guy who will tell you he knows what he is doing. That is until further questioning. But aren’t we all kind of making it up as we go along? Speaking of made up things, Parrish tends to write nonfiction. Although he is also a playwright because he likes putting words into other people’s mouths. He is a writer, essayist, playwright, occasional cook, and lover of terrible gay films. His credits include Lambda Literary Fellow in Nonfiction in 2014 and four year participant in the Georgia Southern Ten-Minute Play Festival. He currently works in children’s publishing during the day and attends the New School in the evening for an MFA which will probably get him nowhere. But it did help him get out of Georgia, so there’s that.