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.

Just My Imagination is the theme of the 39th installment of TELL.  Featuring Tyler Ashley, Ryan J. Haddad, Sasha Kolodkin, Alice Pencavel, and Jennifer Marline Rodríguez.

$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. 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.

Sasha Kolodkin is a Baltimore-bred, Brooklyn-based playwright, poet, and performer.   A recent graduate of SUNY Purchase, she spends her days writing, studying drama, and devising new ways to degrade and destabilize the more dastardly departments of the United States Government (when she isn’t daydreaming at her disinteresting day job).  She is also a dramaturgical consultant for The Cameri Theatre, and a school ambassador with PFLAG.

TYLER ASHLEY is a choreographer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Ashley has performed in the work of Elizabeth Streb, Walter Dundervill, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Yackez, Katy Pyle, and Biba Bell among others. Ashley’s own performances have been presented by Performa, Friends of the High Line, Times Square Alliance, NADA Art Fair, BOFFO, and seen at Art Basel, The Knockdown Center, The Chocolate Factory, Movement Research, Danspace Project and more.

Ashley is also known as The Dauphine of Bushwick – a nightlife personality, performer, and promoter. The Dauphine started the party called BABY TEA three years ago, which has raised nearly $20k for LGBTQI youth over the course of three trans advocacy fundraisers. The Dauphine has performed and/or promoted at The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, NADA Art Fair, BUSHWIG ’14-’17, The Austin International Drag Festival, Fire Island Pines, New York Live Arts, and more.

Jennifer Marline Rodríguez put some of her “best years” in her late teens writing weekly for a national newspaper on literature, visual and performance arts in her home country Dominican Republic (popularly abbreviated ‘DR’). She entered the world of experimental poetry readings in the early 2000s with an ensemble of poets, actresses, writers, musicians and filmmakers who produced and staged a multimedia show called Blues en Vértigo before spoken word was a hit in DR. Around the same time she joined a literary weekly gathering whose regular members were called erranticistas, the most elusive ism in Dominican contemporary literature and arts, and the most fascinating joint to be at in the city in those years. After graduating from college with a degree in Social Communication, Jennifer came to the US with a Fulbright scholarship to pursue an M. A. in Hispanic Literatures and Languages. Currently she is a PhD candidate at Princeton University, writing a dissertation on Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik and Guatemalan performance artist Regina José Galindo. She has published academic articles in Chile and Mexico, as well as a poetry collection in DR. Previously unpublished texts have been featured in anthologies in Argentina, Mexico and Santo Domingo. Recently, the activist and art collective Proyecto 21 from Mexico City incorporated her poetry in its performance repertoire. At Princeton, she was teaching assistant to Argentine theater director Vivi Tellas in a workshop on Documentary Theater and Biodrama. This spring she went onstage at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club for Susana Cook’s “Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts”, and this summer she co-curated F.isura a solo exhibit of performance art photographer Antonio Juárez which opened in Mexico City this June.  But absolutely nothing on storytelling in public. Oh! oh!

Alice Pencavel is a writer, teacher, and performer whose work has been presented by IRT Theater, United Solo Festival, Portland Fringe, Naked Angels, Manhattan Rep., Superhero Clubhouse, Playlight Theater, and the Kitchen Theater, among others. She frequently hosts play readings and performs original work in local, covert spots. As a Teaching Artist, she has worked with Arts Connection, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Brooklyn Acting Lab, Stages on the Sound, Girls Write Now, SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young), and others. Some general appreciations include coffee, tea, chocolate, dreams, the moon, etc. alicepencavel.com

Ryan J. Haddad is an actor, writer, and autobiographical performer. His acclaimed solo play Hi, Are You Single? was most recently featured in The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. He has performed original work at La MaMa E.T.C., Dixon Place, and The New Museum. His credits include The Maids and two Lucy Thurber world premieres at Williamstown Theatre Festival, “Noor and Hadi Go To Hogwarts” for Theater Breaking Through Barriers, and an appearance on the Netflix series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” ryanjhaddad.com