COYOTE JOE STEVENS is a third-generation professional musician in a long line of restless westward moving souls. He caught the songwriting bug at 15 and has been at it ever since. After starting out as a self-taught guitar player and songwriter, he received a Bachelor of Music from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, and has been traveling with his music across the US and abroad.
Albert Cashier was a Civil War soldier who was born female and lived his life as male in the late 1800’s. In 2015 Joe began writing the songs for a musical based on Albert’s life. The Civility of Albert Cashier had readings in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The team had their opening run in Chicago in 2017, winning the Jeff Award for Best New Musical.
Joe’s music rides the edge of the first wave of transgender performers to break through into the public consciousness. The social media explosion combined with shifting public opinion created the conditions that enabled trans and queer artists, a highly marginalized and isolated subculture, to connect and gain visibility. There is now a thriving community of trans and queer musicians, with newcomers and folks who have been playing music all along, that is visible and growing in every corner of the world.
KEATON WOODEN is a Rhodes, Kleban Prize, and Regional Emmy–nominated writer, composer, and director whose work spans theater, film, and television.
Recent accolades in theater include Directing, Editing, and Producing the Off-Broadway premiere of André De Shields is Tartuffe as well as being named a finalist for the Kleban Prize for musical theater, as well as the Relentless Award from the American Playwriting Foundation. With his composing partner Coyote Joe Stevens they have the Chicago Jeff Award for Best New Musical for Albert Cashier, and written the award-winning musical Hills on Fire, Paper or Plastic, and projects that have been hailed as “musical genius at work.”
A Rhodes Scholar nominee, Wooden studied Modern Literature and Critical Theory with the SCIO program at the University of Oxford England, and is a graduate of Ball State University. He has presented research on the entertainment industry and the humanities at the University of Oxford England, IFP Chicago, Kingston University, Wheatstone Academy, and the Screen Actors Guild. He also is a guest moderator and creative feedback consultant/instructor for the Screen Actors Guild in Chicago and IFP Chicago.
