Queer FM Episode May 24, 2022
QueerFM Featured Guests : All The Way Mae is the powerhouse performer & producer/Maya Henry is a Toronto based actress also with Shelley Thompson Nova Scotia, Canada based, award-winning performer and veteran of The Trailer Park Boys, Thompson writer Dawn
8:00am - 10:00am
All The Way Mae is the powerhouse performer and producer behind Twisted Tassels Productions. They are Autistic, queer, and non-binary, and the proud parent of two Autistic kiddos. When they created Twisted Tassels, their aim was to make productions that reflected their social justice values and promoted equity within the art form.
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Maya Henry is a Toronto based actress and social media content creator. She graduated from Ryerson University with a BFA in Film Studies with a focus on film editing and screenwriting. In 2014, Maya created her YouTube channel as a way to chronicle her transition and share her experience with the world. Seven years later, she has amassed over 27 million video views and built a YouTube family of over 215 thousand subscribers. In September of 2017, Maya made her acting debut, starring in a short film titled, “For Nonna Anna” which made its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her most recent role is the title character in the feature "Dawn, Her Dad, and the Tractor", which debuted at the 2021 Inside Out Festival in Toronto.
Shelley Thompson
Nova Scotia, Canada based, award-winning performer and veteran of The Trailer Park Boys, Thompson trained at the UK’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Canadian Film Centre (2015), and was one of the eight Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC 2016/17) where she was also recipient of the Feature Film Award for her screenplay Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor.
Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor was one of twelve projects invited to the NY Writers Lab (supported by Meryl Streep/Nicole Kidman) and one of ten international scripts invited to Cannes for the Breaking Through The Lens initiative in 2019. This, Thompson’s debut feature film, was shot in Nova Scotia in the summer of 2020 and made its world premiere at the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto, May 2021.
Thompson’s short films have played festivals around the world. Pearls, the precursor to this feature and also starring Robb Wells, was one of the last BravoFact shorts. Her short Duck Duck Goose (2018), explored the impact of school lockdowns, and was selected by Telefilm Canada for the Not Short on Talent program at Clermont-Ferrand before playing across Canada and in the US, as well as being a finalist in CBC’s Short Film FaceOff.
Thompson has performed leading roles on the stage across Canada and the UK including at the Shaw Festival, UK’s Royal National Theatre and the West End. Notable TV and film performances include Labyrinth, an award-winning performance in Michael Melski’s The Child Remains and Thom Fitzgerald’s Splinters (TIFF 2018).
Thompson is presently working on her second feature BOUQUET.
She is a champion of LGBTQ issues and parent to Singer/Songwriter T. Thomason.