RISE Series E9: Andrea Prestinario (Ring of Keys)
The Women & Theatre RISE Series presents mini-interviews conducted at the Inaugural RISE Summit with network partners of RISE Theatre, all of which are organizations working to increase equity in the theatre industry. In this episode, Hayley and Amy talk with Andrea Prestinario from Ring of Keys. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: Andrea Prestinario, Ring of Keys
Music: Chloe Geller
Listen to all published episodes of the Women & Theatre RISE Series here.
Many thanks to RISE Theatre, Maestra Music, Playbill, and all the amazing organizations working to increase equity in theatre!
Episode Resources:
Follow Ring of Keys on Instagram
About Ring of Keys:
Ring of Keys is an artist service organization that fosters community and visibility for musical theatre artists - onstage and off - who self-identify as queer women, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists.
The only organization of its kind, the Ring of Keys community is made up of actors, directors, dancers, singers, stage managers, lighting designers, dramaturgs, artistic directors, producers, casting directors, librettists, lyricists, composers, props designers, scenic designers, sound designers, choreographers, costume designers, and production managers who self-identify as lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, femme, masc, non-binary, and the diversity of genders that queerness contains. They represent 850+ individuals in 40 US cities, Toronto, and London. Ring of Keys strives to kick (ball-change) the closet door open to create a vibrant, diverse musical theatre landscape for the future.
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Women & Theatre RISE Series! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! On this series, we share mini-interviews conducted at the Inaugural RISE Summit with network partner organizations of RISE Theatre.
Hayley: We’re thrilled to uplift these amazing organizations that are working to make the theatre industry a more equitable space.
Amy: Today, we’re excited to share our interview with Andrea Prestinario from Ring of Keys.
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people! We are here at the Women & Theatre Podcast booth at the RISE Summit, and we are here with Andrea Prestinario from Ring of Keys. Andrea, welcome to Women & Theatre!
Andrea: Thank you for having me!
Hayley: Of course! If you could share your pronouns and tell us a little bit about Ring of Keys, that would be wonderful.
Andrea: Sure, yeah. Hi! Andrea Prestinario, she/her. I am the co-founder of Ring of Keys, and Ring of Keys is an artist service organization that fosters community and visibility for queer women, trans, and non-binary artists working onstage and off in musical theatre.
Amy: Fantastic! Andrea, can you tell us about something that you’re working on right now that’s lighting you up?
Andrea: Yeah! I… Just to speak a little bit more about what Ring of Keys does as a nonprofit, we really have three pillars of programming, and that is our new work pillar, our professional networking pillar, and our community building pillar. So under the new work pillar, we have our signature series, which is Queering the Canon, which I created and we launched in 2020.
And just to give you a little bit more history of Ring of Keys, I launched Ring of Keys in 2018 with my co-founder Royer Bockus. And we really built the organization because we thought - well, it was just going to be a potluck, really. We just had a gathering in my living room with a couple of artists, and we really felt the need to kind of find our community. It didn’t exist yet, there were no opportunities for us to gather. So we thought it would just be like, you know, a potluck every month. And then it very quickly became clear that there was a need for this space.
We like to say, “Musical theatre is so gay, but not queer.”
Hayley: Yeah!
Amy: That’s a great saying, yeah.
Andrea: What we mean by that is, we all know that there is a lot of representation in terms of cis gay men. And we love that, we’re happy for that representation, but we wanted to feel and see the representation and the opportunities and the visibility for the full spectrum of queerness. Queer women, trans, non-binary artists…
So we quickly grew to become a national network. Within the first year, we were representing 200 artists. We like to call those we represent “Keys,” so we had 200 Keys in the first year. In the pandemic, I formalized the organization into a nonprofit and was serving as Founding Executive Director. And then as of January, we have a new executive director, Delaney Piggins, who I’m so excited about.
One of the really exciting new initiatives that Delaney has created is a new program we’re piloting called Key Voices. And this really falls under our new work development. I spoke a little bit about Queering the Canon, which is a concert series, and we’ve commissioned queer writers to “queer” canonical songs from… you know, we’ve done Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sondheim, Jerry Herman… So we gave them the opportunity to pair a song queered through casting with a new song by the queer writer. And we’ve now - since launching that in 2020 - have commissioned nearly 50 new songs…
Hayley: Wow!
Andrea: …as an organization. So we’ve heard from our Keys, they really want to have Ring of Keys support and develop full new works, full musical theatre works. So hopefully - in 2025, we are planning this Key Voices initiative, which will develop a new musical in a reading format.
Hayley: That’s so exciting, congratulations!
Amy: Wow, that’s so exciting!
Andrea: Yeah, that’s a really big step for the organization, and I’m really excited that that’s going to be in our future.
Hayley: Yeah, amazing. I’m so excited to see what continues to develop with that. Andrea, could you tell us a little bit about what you think is one of the biggest challenges facing the theatre industry right now?
Andrea: I would say that arts workers are really needing support holistically.
Hayley: Yeah.
Andrea: I think that there is an opportunity to provide services like Ring of Keys is providing to arts workers. To remember that there are nearly 515 active anti-trans legislation bills currently, that there is gender-affirming care that is being stripped away, there are - you know, reproductive rights bans, abortion bans, throughout this country. And I think when we think about what are the actual needs - you know, an actor can, like, they can like, find their mark, they can slay on the high C, but what they need is the support to be able to… Like, where do I go if I’m working in Texas and I need to have an abortion?
Amy: Yes!
Andrea: You know, how do I deal with working in a state where there’s a drag ban?
Hayley: Yeah.
Andrea: Like, am I as a non-binary person - is that a safe space for me to work? I think those are the kind of - you know, the Actors Fund is doing an amazing job providing these kind of services as well, in addition to the many service organizations that are here at the RISE Summit. So I think we’re doing a great job of creating a way to provide representation. I think we’re getting places as an industry, but we really need to continue to think a little more holistically, of like, “What do we need as full humans?”
Amy: Yeah. Yeah, that’s such a helpful perspective, so I appreciate you sharing it. Yeah. Andrea, what is one small step that listeners can take to make the theatre industry a more equitable space?
Andrea: I think it’s mental health.
Hayley: Yeah.
Amy: Yes! Say more.
Andrea: I think it kind of goes hand in hand with what I was just talking about. In terms of the intersectional identities that we all carry and the work that we’re all doing, there is a universal lack of support for mental health. And one step we can all take is the recognition of that need and support, and that it looks different for every person, and that we’re not a monolith. That, you know, going on with the show may be somebody’s best way to deal with the crisis and trauma they’re dealing with, and maybe for someone else, that looks like having to call out.
Hayley/Amy: Yeah.
Andrea: I think everyone is going to respond differently. So while it’s not entirely equitable from a gender lens, I think lately, more and more, I’m really kind of obsessed with this idea of “We need to be more focused on mental health.”
Hayley: Yeah.
Amy: Absolutely.
Andrea: I think, too, being an older person. I think younger generations are already there, but I think institutionally, systemically, we really need to really normalize our conversations in the workplace around mental health.
Hayley: That’s really important, yeah. Andrea, thank you so much for being with us.
Andrea: Sure!
Hayley: Before we run, could you tell our listeners where they can find out more about you and Ring of Keys on the internet?
Andrea: Yeah. Ringofkeys.org, and we are at Instagram @ringofkeysorg. And I’m andreaprestinario.com.
Hayley: Great! Thank you so much.
Andrea: Thank you.
Amy: Fantastic! And thank you all for listening to our conversation with Andrea Prestinario from Ring of Keys.
Hayley: Bye!
(Music)
Amy: Women & Theatre is a proud network partner of RISE Theatre.
Hayley: Thank you so much to RISE, Maestra, Playbill, and RISE Program Manager Victoria Detres for collaborating with us on this series. Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
