Jessica Massart is the Senior Lead for dance and theatre projects at Kickstarter. She collaborates with artists and organizations on crafting campaigns from the video and story to strategic outreach planning. Before joining Kickstarter, she directed marketing and communication for the likes of On the Boards, Performa, and the French Institute Alliance Francaise. She has also provided management for award-winning companies such as zoe | juniper and The Builders Association. 

For our very first workshop, Step1 brought in Ashley Rogers, (playwright/stand-up comic/Trans rights activist & educator) to host "Creating Trans & Non-Binary Narratives for Performance". This free workshop was available to all producers, writers, directors, and performers interested in effectively staging Trans & Non-Binary narratives.

In this workshop, Ashley addressed the following topics:

• Common misconceptions about trans and non-binary experiences

• Trans casting snafus to watch out for, and how to help trans artists

• Is it okay to tell trans/n-b stories if you're not trans?

By the end of the workshop, a communal play was written!

Ashley Lauren Rogers is is an award-winning writer and trans rights activist. She was a writing fellow of the Trans Theatre Lab through WP Theatre and The Public in 2019, She is the Literary Director for Step1 Theatre Project, was artist in residence at Middlesex County Vocational Technical School in East Brunswick NJ. Her show recurring sho SCOWL: Fight For Your Rights, was a stage combat-oriented “Pro Wrestling,”-style storytelling piece of theatre which showed at The Brick in July of 2018.  Her play Oddity was presented as part of the Trans Theatre Festival at The Brick in 2018.  Her play Chasing the Ghost had a reading at Judson Arts Magic Time in June of 2017.  Her play Becky’s Christmas Wish was performed at City Theatre Miami as part of their “Winter Shorts,” and was a finalist for the City Theatre National Short Play Awards as well as Minneapolis MN for The World Crime League’s F**ed Up Xmas short scene festival, and NJIT’s New Director Showcase 2018. Her ten-minute play “Tag You’re Dead,” about the medical gatekeeping and erasure of the trans experience premiered at Joe’s Pub as part of the Nasty Women Unite arts festival.  Her collection of short plays The Illustrated Xmas Sweater was produced in December 2016 by Step1 Theatre Project under the name Falsehoods, Fallacies, and Fairytales which played to mostly sold out houses.  Ashley was invited to the two-week summer playwriting intensive at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, had shows produced in New York City as part of Stage Left Studio and the New York Nineteenth Century Society, Theatre To Go in Melrose MA, and as part of the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC. Recently her work has been displayed as part of Stage Left Studio’s sold out Gender: A Performance Project, and her show Bite Curious, was a part of White Rabbit Production’s Scream Queens and Crazed Fiends, short play event. Her one-person show PASS/FAIL received its premiere at Dixon Place Lounge NYC was performed for The Midtown International Theatre Festival, and was part of the Trans Theatre Festival at The Brick in Brooklyn and has since been performed at the University of Wisconsin, as well as in Cincinnati, Piscataway NJ, and upcoming in Detroit.   Ashley is also a Joker with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. Ashley is a recipient of the ACM Award for Comedy Video for writing the pilot of Marisa and Rocco, is the creator of Ashley Rogers Does Something Awesome, Monthly Tea with Madeline Foxtrot, all through Dogtoon Media. Ashley has been featured on multiple panels about trans representation through Revry.TV, was featured on Fusion TV’s Peabody award nominated Sex.Right.Now, and as a part of Charlie’s story in the Showtime Documentary More Than T.  She has been featured in the Frenchy and The Punk Music video for “House of Cards,” Sundance Channel’s “Young Broke and Beautiful,” and TLC’s “Bling It On.” Ashley has written articles for Cosmopolitan, The Mary Sue, SFWA, John Scalzi Blog, Beyond Victoriana, and Steampunk Magazine Online, has been a vlogger and a blogger for NerdCaliber.com. Ashley has developed a workshop for writers to learn how write for trans and non­binary narratives and is available on WritingTheOther.com. Ashley is the Producer/creator of the Is It Transphobic Podcast and The Right to Play Podcast.. https://www.ashleylaurenrogers.com/