Kevin Kantor

Kevin Kantor (they/them) is a trans non-binary poet and theatre maker working to deconstruct and reimagine the semiotics of gender onstage and in performance.

Kevin has toured nationally with their poetry, performing & leading workshops at colleges & universities across the country. Kevin’s writing, which aims to explore survivorship & trauma, challenge rape culture, interrogate gender’s role in storytelling, and raise queer voices, has been featured in Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Upworthy, & in the anthology We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out (Holt Paperback). Their collective work has garnered over 18 million online views.

As an actor and trans literacy consultant they have worked with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, ActorsTheatre of Louisville, Statera Arts, and more. Kevin also worked as a content supervisor and contributor for the second season of John Ridley’s ABC drama American Crime and was featured alongside Lady Gaga at her 2016 Oscars Performance.

Please Come Off-Book

“Frailty, thy name is the gender binary”

In Please Come Off-Book, Kevin Kantor crafts a raw and vulnerable confluence between two of their passions: acting and poetry, using their experiences as a trans non-binary theatre maker as an extended lens of exploration into gender identity, family dynamics, and growing up queer.

Kantor critiques the treatment of queer figures with an adroit blend of humor and earnest longing, imagining a braver and bolder future, one in which Hamlet is trans (obviously) and queer characters get to survive their own stories.

Please Come Off-Book is both a heartfelt love letter and a scathing critique of the American theatre and the lenses we choose to see ourselves through.

Praise for Please Come Off-Book

This is the love letter to theater and queerness I have been looking for since I was 14. I am so happy to have finally found it. I was hungry and grateful for every page.
– Clementine von Radics (they/them), author of Mouthful of Forevers

This is the most impactful collection of poems I have ever read. Kevin Kantor expertly dances through the psyche (and inherent mindf*ck) of learning how to move through life with a “non-normative” gender identity, while simultaneously attempting to prosper in an art form that wholly demands access to the performance of normativity. Please Come Off-Book elicits audible laughter, explosive tears, and, ultimately, the comfort that we are not alone on this fool’s errand. Perhaps, even, we might one day win.
– Will Wilhelm (they/them), author of Gender Play

Please Come Off-Book is a funny, charming, and poignant exploration of the past, of theatre, of gender, and of one’s self. I haven’t seen a writer integrate these conversations so simply yet with such heartfelt complexity. Kevin is a voice for a generation of thinkers, shakers, and change-makers.
– Maybe Burke (they/she), actor, founder of The Trans Literacy Project

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Please Come Off-Book

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