Terry Galloway
Terry Galloway is a deaf, queer writer and performer, who tours her one woman shows as a cheap way of seeing the world. She has performed her solo shows "Out All Night and Lost My Shoes" and "Lardo Weeping," in venues ranging from the American Place theater in New York to the Zap Club in Brighton, England. In Austin Texas she gained a reputation for playing comic male roles as a student and Research Associate for the University of Texas' alternative Summer Theater Festival, Shakespeare at Winedale. She's also known as one of the founding members of Austin's wildly popular 6th street cabaret Esther's Follies and as the founder of Actual Lives, a writing and performance workshop for adults with and without disabilities. In Tallahassee, Florida she is the Head Cheese of the Mickee Faust Academy for the REALLY Dramatic Arts and the co-founder of the Mickee Faust Club, a performance group responsible for the award-winning video parodies, "Annie Dearest, The Real Miracle Worker, " featuring lots and lots of wah-wah, and "The Scary Lewis Yell-a-thon," featuring a Jerry Lewis look-alike and a bevy of inspirational cripples. She writes as well as performs and you can find her articles, monologues, poems and performances texts in, among other publications, Sleepaway: Writings on Summer Camp, Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater, Out of Character—Rants, Raves and Monologues from Today's Top Performance Artists, Plays from the Women's Project, Texas Monthly Magazine, Austin Chronicle, American Voice, The Dolphin Reader, and numerous anthologies about queerness, deafness, disability, theater, and Elvis. She has been a Visiting Artist at the California Institute of the Arts, Florida State University, and the University of Texas at Austin. She's won a variety of awards including an NEA, a J.Frank Dobie Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, grants from the Texas Commission of the Arts and the Florida Divisions of Cultural Affairs, 5 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards, 3 Prindi National Public Radio Commentary Awards, and a Best Swimmer Award from the Lions Camp for Crippled Children. She splits her time between Austin Texas, and Tallahassee, Flordia where she lives with her long-time love Donna Marie Nudd, a professor at Florida State University and their cat Tweety.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry-Galloway/1077085228#!/profile.php?v=info&id=1077085228
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/865730.Terry_Galloway

ICONS 4
Wednesday

Jade Esteban Estrada

NBC News calls him "America's Prince of Pride". Critics around the world have compared him to "a cross between Andy Warhol and Billy Graham." Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine calls him "one of the finest solo theatre artists of the 21st century." He's been seen in feature films, on Comedy Central's "The Graham Norton Effect," "In the Life" on PBS, "Friday Night Lights" and "30 Rock" on NBC and has headlined concerts, theatres and comedy clubs around the world. Meet "master entertainer" Jade Esteban Estrada.

As a singer, Genre Magazine calls him “the most exciting Latin pop artist ever to emerge onto the music scene”. He has performed in seven languages and in 33 countries to date and his hypnotic music can be heard on the Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning police drama "The Shield" on FX. The Advocate calls him "exquisite."

The Estrella award-winning singer was born and raised in the Tejano music capital of the world, San Antonio, Texas. The son of a U.S. Army officer, Estrada won a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and sharpened his knowledge of his chosen profession. He studied dance (alongside Jennifer Lopez) with Slam, the lead dancer from Madonna's Blonde Ambition Tour among other notable teachers of the era.

While still at the conservatory, he briefly worked as an assistant to Tony award-winning actress Zoe Caldwell who once told him "in order to prepare for your career as an actor, you must do everything!" And that he did.

In 1994, he took home the prize for the Funniest Amateur Comic in New York at Stand-Up New York. He made his living as a choreographer by day (a skill that came very naturally to him) and performed as a singer, dancer, actor, writer and go-go boy by night. His main concern during this period was getting from one show to the next.

He began his pop music career as a member of the three-member hip-hop group The Model Citizens (with Mario Vasquez of "American Idol" fame). The group enjoyed a notable success, however, after several heated debates over who the lead singer was, Estrada ceremoniously left the group for Europe to pursue a solo career.

While searching for his niche, Estrada once again supplemented his income by playing major roles in high profile shows abroad such as the German production of "Starlight Express." He spent most of his time writing songs with JELS, a duo he formed with West End starlet Samantha Lavender. However, still desperately unfulfilled, he returned to America and to his theatrical roots debuting his one-man show "It's Too Late...It's Already in Me" at the 1997 Festival de Libre Enganche representing the United States to high acclaim.

During his stint as choreographer and lead dancer for Charo (yes, cuchi-cuchi Charo), he signed to Total Envision Records in 1998 releasing the hit single, "Reggae Twist." He toured extensively performing with top names in the Latin Music world and became the first performer to open the Tejano Concert at Christiansen Stadium in Texas since Selena. He also gained an unusual popularity performing on the global beauty pageant circuit where he became known as the "Prince of Pageantry." He was awarded several coveted awards from the Miss Universe Organization, the Miss America Scholarship Program, the Miss Black World Organization and Miss Latina USA.

In September 2000, he opened the doors to his own label and released his long-awaited debut album "Angel" (Vicarious) in February 2001 and for the next three years toured the globe extensively to impressive reviews including a headlining appearance at Europride in Vienna and several other high-profile Latin music events. He has shared the stage with Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Ricky Martin, Margaret Cho, RuPaul, Jody Watley, and Jimmy Somerville and countless other fabulous stars. In 2002, Estrada lent his golden voice to the "Being Out Rocks" (Centaur) compilation CD where he joined such artists as Cyndi Lauper, Sarah McLachlan and Taylor Dayne and was awarded the Premio Estrella at the 9th Annual Encuentro Awards in Miami for outstanding visibility and achievement in the entertainment industry. Out Magazine christened him "the first gay Latin star."

Estrada turned his attention to the solo theatre format in 2002 with the debut of his wildly popular one-man show "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1" which also toured extensively. His sequel "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 2" won the 2004 Audience Favorite Award in Solo Performance at the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in September 2004 and garnished several other awards. In 2006, he debuted "ICONS: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 3" and took home awards for Best Solo Performance and Best Original Music. He is also the man behind the hit Latin show "Tortilla Heaven" written by his sister Celeste Angela Estrada and directed by his brother David Miguel Estrada of Saturday Night Live fame.

In 2007, the artist debuted three more shows "Gay Christian, Gay Muslim, Gay Jew," "Pico de Gallo" and "A Lullaby for Ryan: The History of HIV/AIDS in America" and in 2008 he debuted "Chek it, Baby: A Fabulous Explanation of Anton Chekhov's Fiercest Plays" at the 2008 Twin Cities Chekhov Festival.

Through his work in his artistic and political endeavors, Jade Esteban Estrada is fast becoming one of the world's most ground breaking personalities.

http://www.getjaded.com

From the Profound to the Profane
Thursday

Mimi Gonzalez

Mimi Gonzalez was once told by her mother, "You're such a beautiful girl, but then you open your mouth and spoil it all." Mimi graduated from high school as the class clown and then received a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Central Michigan University. A move to New York slapped the corporate smirk off her face but quickly resulted in a spot on the TODAY show featuring "The Funniest Person on Wall Street." Even temps have dreams. But New York's a tough place to start a dream.

So Mimi Detroit headed west and discovered her new comedy identity in San Francisco and became the political comedian, Mimi=Freed. Launched at Josie's Cabaret and Juice Joint, within a year Mimi emceed part of the 1993 March on Washington representing the "bi-nority" element of the LGBT. Music festivals and Prides across the country followed including Stonewall '94, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Nashville, San Francisco, San Diego, her hometown of Detroit and Michigan's Pride.

Television shows and movies have contributed to the growing presence of this out, loud and proud Latina. She embraced Gonzalez, half of her given last name, upon moving to Los Angeles and her credits have grown to include Comedy Central's "Women Aloud," "Ellen," Maury Povich, "Que Loco," "Funny is Funny" and Bravo's "The Gay Riviera." Look closely and you'll see her in the movie "Bound." The journalism degree has even made an appearance and her freelanced pieces range from interviewing Camille Paglia for On Our Backs, an op-ed piece for the Advocate, columns in SF's ICON which resulted in a nomination for a Cable Car Award and biotechnical reporting for Office.com.

New York never looked so tame and back East is where she's returned to the big city where she continues to write, travel and push people's buttons. Fast forward being her favorite.

Girls Rock!
Friday

Bedhead Betty

Bedhead Betty" came about over coffee one morning with messy hair and wry grins on faces. Bands have got to have a name that'll provoke images of...well, whatever one might imagine! Let us paint a picture of Betty for you; a cross between Shane on the "L Word" and Carrie Bradshaw from "Sex in the City". She is late for work again, having lost her pants in a long string of smoke-filled clothes strewn about the apartment of one more late night escapade of frolicking and...

Oh yeh, the band...

We play other people's songs. Either we are not talented enough to write our own, too lazy or we just slept too late. I kind of think it's the latter!
We play songs that we like. One of us will bring a song to the table and the rest of us just go along for the ride. So we play a variety of styles that you don't normally get from Tallahassee cover bands (read: no southern rock).
Julie likes to dance so we play dance music; old school, new school, and some cheeese.
Di likes to get melancholy to a good folk song so we play a bit of that (think Indigo Girls).
Doug loves Burt Bacharach, so we play some lounge flavors.
Dave loves to close his eyes and get his groove on, so we've been known to roll with some Al Green.

Come around and have a little listen, you never know what you might get!

http://www.myspace.com/thebedheadbettys

Tryst

TRYST is an all female band out of Tallahassee, Florida. The group was born in April 1990. TRYST is the brain-child of the band's lead singer, Cindy Stottler. The band has evolved over the years into a mature, tight musical journey through several decades of rock-n-roll,disco, country and any other genre that moves them.

http://www.myspace.com/trystoftallahassee