Alder Duan Hurley is a poet based in the Bay Area. With the Hearts and Minds Artist Cohort, they are exploring the aspects of storytelling that happen off the page, in the performance of the piece.

Ben has enjoyed acting for many years, telling other peoples' stories, but is still new to telling his own! He has one previous piece with GAPA Theater about his and his boyfriend's experience during lockdown called Distancing Together. He's been inspired by all the fabulous writers here and is excited for you to hear the wonderful stories!

Chris Kim is a former juvenile public defender and currently a lawyer and a Trauma Recovery Coach. He loves poetry and storytelling, particularly as modalities to heal from trauma. In 2020, Chris shared a story in OutSpoken, an annual Pride storytelling show by Story District in Washington, DC. Chris is also a burner, Buddhist, yoga teacher, and Reiki master. In his free time, he loves to travel, dance, and perform improv comedy.

A founding member of GAPA, Dino participated in GAPA Theatre during its launch in the 1990s and dove back in when the group had its rebirth in 2017. He is grateful to GAPA Theatre for providing a space where our stories as QTAPIs can be told. 

Since 1994, GAPA has provided me the platform to write, act, sing and dance.  It has truly been the family that has let me be my creative self.  It also served as my activist base. When I served on the Oakland City Council, GAPA provided the inspiration for me to author one of the first local ordinances to offer domestic partnership registration, a precursor to the fight for gay marriage.  Today, GAPA Theater allows to me to once again explore myself as I am today, rooted in my identity but with changing gradients of self-perception.

Indonesian-born Chinese queer immigrant Edward Gunawan is a writer and filmmaker who tells interdisciplinary stories interrogating kinship, belonging, and intersectional identities. He now resides with his husband on unceded Ohlone land in Oakland, CA.

Howard Chan (he/him) is the current chair of GAPA. This is his first experience writing and performing the written word on stage.  Locally, he has sung with the Golden Gate Men's chorus and the GAPA Men's Chorus. Prior to this, he has dabbled with playing the piano and violin as well as conducting local orchestras. When he has free time, you can find him making sketches of inanimate objects.

As a queer, adopted, Asian American woman, I proudly represent all of my intersectional identities in my work as a scientist, entrepreneur, and writer. Storytelling is the common thread in everything I enjoy. Understanding how people and ideas connect with each other to shape our world is my main inspiration. 

Jethro Patalinghug (they, them) is a filmmaker, video producer, visual artist, and queer immigrant activist. You can watch their films 50 Years of Fabulous and My Revolutionary Mother on Amazon and iTunes. They are also known for their drag persona Virginia Please on Tiktok where they highlight representation for queer and trans-BIPOC communities. Jethro was Mr. Gay San Francisco 2016 and Mr. GAPA 2012. They have a B.S. in Digital Filmmaking at the Art Institute of California in San Francisco and is currently finishing an MFA in Studio Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Kenji is an irreverent, creative, gimpy, spiritual geek who earns a living as a success coach, dharma teacher, and spiritual director; with a history as an activist and artist. Thrilled to be with such stunning talent in GAPA Theater he hopes we tickle your minds and drop your jaws. 

Kunal Prasad is an Actor, Artist and Educator and has loved having his creative mind and heart blown these past few weeks working with Cesar, Kat and Joel and this amazing cohort of beautiful individuals. Thank you all so much! Ram Ram and Bula Vinaka. 

Mariselle Moscoso (They/Them/Theirs) resides in Northeast Los Angeles where they live with their partner and adopted Shiba-Chi. They were drawn to the H&M workshop to find kinship & learn from fellow QTAPI and mentors in storytelling and performance. To them, storytelling reminds us of our shared fragility & strength.

Michael is a San Francisco-based speaker and advocate. His drag persona, Juicy Liu, was crowned Miss GAPA (GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance) in 2016. Leading GAPA as Chair from 2017-2022 and organizing Queer Trans Asian Pacific Islanders (QTAPIs) over the years, Michael hopes to unleash our collective power through storytelling.

Ngoc is an Bay Area artist spending most of his free time stalking chihuahuas on social media. His long term dream besides being a notable artist is to own a farm full of chihuahuas and other small dogs. Don’t talk to him about chihuahuas unless you want to see him turn into a school girl and be shown random chihuahua pictures, not his own.

He enjoys being silly, day-drinking, and painting so that he can escape his responsibility of being a dad to his 8 months old son. Ngoc is currently learning to sing, play the piano and becoming a better story teller. Maybe he’s making up for lost opportunities as a young child. He’s often facetious, childish, and sometimes a bish, just like his chihuahua.

Oliver first volunteered for GAPA in 2006 as a way of coming out to his community. To further his activism for the LGBTQ+ Asian and Pacific Islander community, he joined the organization in 2015 first as a member of GAPA Men’s Chorus, then shortly as a board director for GAPA and its charitable culture arm GAPA Fund, and as a playwright for GAPA Theatre. Outside, he is a biotech executive, a family historian, and with its long literary tradition and continued colonization, an ardent advocate for the use and development of his native Ilokano language. All these streams of identity find themselves intersecting in his work. He lives in Oakland with his husband.

Tony (he/him) has been with GAPA Theatre since 2017.  He is completely new to theater in any form, and has been learning writing, storytelling, performing and directing, all for the first time.  Given the stressful period we all went through during the pandemic and the wave of anti-American Asian Pacific Islander hate crimes, he looks forward to learning about storytelling and spoken words at Hearts & Minds workshops and telling one of his personal stories.

Thọ (‘TAH’) Vong’s first spiritual experience was floating in a lagoon next to a refugee camp at age four after escaping Vietnam. His unfolding relationship with the Divine has led him through many identities: community organizer, dancer, Broadway chorus boy, massage therapist, minister, and future clinical psychologist. Writing helps him find the thread that runs through his life.

Vince works as an educator and coach who champions wellness and strengths-based leadership development. He has seen and been inspired by the power of stories from previous GAPA performances and views storytelling as an act of self-care, connection and liberation.   He is also a plant enthusiast who enjoys the beauty and life lessons learned from nature.