MANIFEST P*SSY

Low-Cost Previews: September 17 – 19

First Friday for the Military: September 19, 7:00 PM
Complimentary tickets for active duty and veterans.

Opening Night:  September 20, 7:00PM

 A Gay Play Tuesday Reading of Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club by Shakina Nayfack: September 23, 7:30 PM
Join us for a very special Gay Play Tuesday salon-style reading of Shakina Nayfack’s Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club, which tells the story of a vibrant, international group of transgender women who band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery. RSVP HERE!

Pre-Show Event — Backstage Thursday: Director’s Happy Hour:  September 25, 6:00PM

Post-Show Discussion — Blurring the Binary: September 28, 4:00 PM
Join us, after the matinee, for a panel discussion featuring local transgender and gender nonconforming artists, who will discuss how their artistic practice, advocacy, and activism combine to help make a more gender-affirming world.

Pay-What-You-Will & Industry Night:  September 29, 7:00PM

Pre-Show Event — Backstage Thursday: Designer Spotlight:  October 2, 6:00PM

Post-Show Discussion — Manifesting Liberation led by M. Myrta Leslie Santana: October 5, 4:00 PM 
Join us, after the matinee, for a post-show reflection on Manifest Pussy and trans performance as liberatory practice, led by UC San Diego professor M. Myrta Leslie Santana. Myrta is an ethnomusicologist and performer whose work examines the social and political significance of trans and queer performance in the Americas. 

Daily: Before and after performances
Come to the show early to enjoy our Clark Cabaret, open one hour before the show time and will remain open after the show. 

Shakina Nayfack – Known artistically by the mononym Shakina, she made Television history on NBC’s Connecting… as the first transgender person to play a series regular on a network sitcom, and is a two-time Critics Choice Awrd winner for her writing and directing on NBC’s Quantum Leap. Shakina can also be seen guest starring in Amazon’s GLAAD Award-Winning Transparent Musicale Finale, which she helped write and produce, and Hulu’s Difficult People as the iconic trans truther, Lola.. Her play Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club premiered on Audible in 2020 in collaboration with Williamstown Theatre Festival and was recognized with a 2021 Drama League Award for Best Audio Theatre Production. She is the Founding Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, where she helped to develop hundreds of new musicals including Michael R. Jackson’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop and her own autobiographical glam rock odyssey, Manifest Pussy. Recognitions include The Lilly Award for Working Miracles, Theatre Resources Unlimited Humanitarian Award, The Kilroys List, Logo 30, and two-time Drama League fellow and two-time OUT 100 honoree.

Sherri Eden Barber (Director) is the Artistic Director of Diversionary Theatre, and former Resident Director of Hamilton (And Peggy Company). Recent productions: Tiny Beautiful Things with Nia Vardalos (Pasadena Playhouse), To Let Go and Fall (Theater Latté Da), Esperanza Spalding’s Emily’s D+Evolution (Development on European Tour), Happily After Ever (Ricochet Collective – 59E59, Edinburgh Fringe Festival), good friday (The Flea Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Ricochet Collective – Teatro Circulo), Gordy Crashes (Ricochet Collective – IRT), Mr. Landing Takes A Fall (The Flea), Herman Kline’s Midlife Crisis (The Beckett), 24 Hour Plays on Broadway with Pablo Schreiber, Laverne Cox, and Melanie Griffith (American Airlines Theatre). Sherri is a recipient of The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Directors Fellowship, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and recipient of the US/UK Exchange Award.

Jacob Yates  (Music Director) is a a classically trained cellist and Music Director. His favorite Broadway/Off Broadway credits include Wicked, Les Misérables, Spring Awakening, Alice By Heart, Hadestown (Tour/Broadway), Only Gold, Rock of Ages, and currently Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. In addition to his Broadway career, Jacob has toured with Disney’s DISNEY PRINCESS The Concert as well as performed all over the world with Broadway and Television Stars. He will also be seen in the upcoming feature film, On A String. Future projects include Hard Road To Heaven, When We Touch, and The Baker’s Wife.

Clifton Chadick (Scenic Designer) is excited to make his West Coast debut at Diversionary! Cliff is a Drama Desk nominated designer who has designed extensively in NYC and regionally for such companies as Ars Nova, Ogunquit Playhouse, TUTS, Rattlestick Theater, Richochette Collective, The Flea Theatre, BEDLAM Theatre Co, NYU, The Wild Project, The New School, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Out of the Box, The New Ohio, Ocean State Theatre, Big Arts Herb Strauss, Arizona Broadway Theatre, Broadway Palm, and Norwegian Cruise Lines. His latest design credits include Rooted (Opera House Arts); Music City (Bedlam) Moving Movies (Ballet Arizona); The National Tour of Gloria and Emilio Estefan’s On Your Feet! (G4, Evan Bernardin, Salgado Productions) Bathing in Moonlight and Exquisite Agony written and directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (GALA Hispanic). He is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Western Connecticut State University and a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local 829. View his portfolio at www.CliftonChadick.com

Sammy Webster (Lighting Designer) (he/they) Sammy Webster is a recent graduate from San Diego State University; receiving their Masters of Fine Arts in Lighting Design and Technology. He is grateful for his community in San Diego, and to his mentors who helped guide him for the last 6 years in this industry. See his work at szwdesign.com

Miguel Barragan (Costume Designer) is the Assistant Director for the fashion program at ASU FIDM, bringing two decades of global fashion industry experience as a Costume Designer, Fashion Designer, and Creative Director. In the world of theater, Miguel has designed costumes for Junk: A Rock Opera (Lyric Theater), LA Posada, Cosa Rara (Highways Performance Space), and Fade to Connie: The Roxy Files (The Cavern Club Theater). Passionate about the intersection of design, art, and storytelling, Miguel brings his vision and craft to the stage through bold, innovative costume design.

Nikki (Nic) Rodriguez Villafañe (Sound Designer) (he/they) is a Boricua DJ, sound designer, and scholar whose work moves across the frequencies of ritual, memory, and embodied resistance. Blending academic inquiry with cultural practice, Nic’s research explores Black Caribbean literary and sonic performances, with a focus on how sound, storytelling, and performance function as archives of diasporic knowledge and healing. As a DJ and sound designer, Nic brings these insights into practice, curating sonic experiences that center collective memory, cultural survival, and the politics of pleasure. Their sound work has accompanied theater productions, film, and community rituals, weaving together diasporic beats with archival echoes. Nikki is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at the University of California, San Diego. They are also a member of Colectivo Bámbula, a grassroots storytelling collective of Puerto Rican educators and artists committed to political education and transformative justice. Whether on the page, the stage, or turntables, Nic remains committed to creating spaces where sound becomes ceremony, where rhythm becomes theory, and where the Black and Caribbean diaspora can dance joyously towards freedom.

Jason James Johnson (Puppetry Designer) is a California-based artist, performer, puppeteer and educator with over twenty five years of performance, entertainment and classroom experience. His award-winning works have been seen on television, toured with national and international film festivals and been enjoyed on the Internet by millions of people. Beyond solo projects, Jason has collaborated with many artists, puppeteers, writers, directors, animators, performers and teachers to bring amazing and enduring things to life.

Nick Hussong (Co-Projection Designer) Broadway: Skeleton Crew (Tony Nomination). Off-Broadway: Skeleton Crew, These Paper Bullets (Atlantic, Drama Desk Nomination) Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons, Obie & Lucille Lortel award) On That Day in Amsterdam (Primary Stages, Drama Desk Nomination) Other credits include: You are Cordially Invented to the End of World (South Coast Rep) The Marriage of Figaro (Little Island NYC) Fiddler on the Roof (Alliance) An American Soldier (PAC NYC) Next to Normal (Round House Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, Helen Hayes Nomination), The Wizard of Oz (Geva) RENT! (Paper Mill Playhouse) Magic Flute, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cabaret (Atlanta Opera), Vietgone (The Guthrie) To the Yellow House (Lajolla) Kleptocracy (Arena Stage) Until the Flood (15 regional and international locations); Solo Meditations, Haint Blu, Hair & Other Stories (Urban Bush Women); Grounded (Alley) Other work includes; Atlanta Opera, Grey___matter, Apollo Exhibit, Virginia Museum of Art, David Zwirner Gallery, Virgin Voyages, Marc Jacobs, Mass MoCA, Complex Magazine, AMC+, San Diego Shell, Pacific Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Tony Awards (CBS), Ask Ronna Podcast. He also designed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, China, Canada, Senegal and Vienna. Co-Creator of FEAST, an immersive dining experience with Listen&Breathe (Nantucket, Ireland). nickhussong.com

Sierra (Co-Projection Designer) (they/them) is a projections and lighting artist primarily working in NYC and San Diego. They hold a MFA in Theatrical Design and Technology from San Diego State University.  They work on a lot of 2SLGBT+ and are thrilled to be back at Diversionary. Their select previous projection designs includes TL;DR here are Diversionary as well as No Man’s Land (The Curiosity Cabinet), In the Throes of Death (The Curiosity Cabinet) and  Ziggy, Stardust and Me (Projection Design, San Diego State University). https://www.sierradesigns.co

Jerrica Stone (Associate Music Director) is a bilingual musician and music director who focuses on story through music. Her focus on telling women, queer, and POC stories has taken her from San Diego to SC to NYC. Recent productions: Last Coffee in Rockville (Farm! Theater NYC), Songs About Trains (Public NYC), Telo (Signature NYC), Hijas (Ithaca University), 24 Hour Musical Broadway with Lena Gabrielle, Regency Girls (The Old Globe), Bright Star (Lamplighters Theater), Henry 6 (The Old Globe), Outsiders (La Jolla Playhouse and Jacobs Theater). Jerrica is also the Executive Producer for Miss San Diego Scholarship Organization. When not in a theater, Jerrica is usually at home on her micro-farm, or traveling with her partner and dogs.

Madison Mercado (Stage Manager) is a San Diego-based stage manager with a love for all aspects of production. She is thrilled to be returning to Diversionary. Previously at Diversionary she has been assistant stage manager for TL;DR: Thelma and Louise; Dyke Remix. Additionally she was Diversionary’s arts and engagement intern Spring of 2025. She is currently a senior theatre student at San Diego State University where she stage managed Rent. Some of her recent credits include Matilda (ASM, SDMT), All’s Well that End Well (SM Apprentice, The Old Globe), Miracle on 34th St. (ASM, New Village Arts), The Rocky Horror Show (Production Assistant, Cygnet Theatre), and Summerfest (ASM, La Jolla Music Society). You can find her and her work on Instagram @madison.mercado.

We are no longer requiring masks in our theater. Masks are still encouraged to help keep our performers and audience members safe, but they are not required.

NOTE: This policy is subject to change at any moment to reflect changing local, state, and federal regulations. Please return before your scheduled performance date to see our most recent policy.