Amy’s action is echoed backwards and forwards, rewriting old gender fictions, creating new. Inspired by her example, he picks up a spoon for the first time. Near the end of Amy and the Cloud Basket, Amy meets an old man who always wanted to spoon clouds. The TransGenerational Theatre Project (TGTP) met for weekly rehearsals, featuring applied theatre activities and techniques that generated content and solidified community. Christian Appel and her fellow facilitators (Lenni Yesner, Kai Pelton, and Amanda Thompson) founded the project two years ago, culling members from trans and queer groups and organizations throughout the city. When I saw the TransGenerational Theatre Project’s performance at this year’s Trans Theatre Festival (held at The Brick Theatre in New York City), I watched thirty-four trans non-actors, including Renée Imperato, perform fictions based in their personal experience: an all trans basketball team, a benevolent trans taxi driver, a trans child who leaves home and finds solace with gender nonconforming parents on a unicorn farm-all devised and co-authored by the participants. Day still becomes night, but differently. By imagining a future in which she plays a different role, Amy alters an entire way of life. The world carries out this ritual until Amy expresses her interest in baskets, upending the gender divide. The roles are thus: boys hold baskets full of fluffy white air, girls spoon them in front of the sun. In the children’s book Amy and the Cloud Basket (written by Ellen Pratt, illustrations by Lisa Russell, published by radical feminist press Lollipop Power), night comes only when children cover the sun with clouds.

Amy and the Cloud Basket by Ellen Pratt