Cassidy Dawn Graves (they/she) is a writer, musician, CassiDJ, and producer/curator/host of live performance and nightlife events. Their areas of interest include live DJ sets, comedy, arts and culture writing, queer variety shows, acting, and original music that’s lyrically in the grey area between comedy and not. BFA with honors from NYU Tisch's Playwrights Horizons Theater School.

As CassiDJ: Spinning dynamic and genre-fluid sets all over the city, including regular appearances at Bushwick staples Bar Jade, Rash, Rebecca’s, and Happyfun Hideaway. Resident DJ at Brooklyn Comedy Collective and member/co-producer of the party collective In-Unit.

As a musician: Cassidy writes indie pop-rock music, both solo and with the band Boy Howdy! (debut EP “Howdy” available now!). Songs are sometimes about the unpredictability of bodily fluids, sometimes about neglect and anxiety.

As a producer/curator: Creator of the Am I Write, Ladies? performance series and the variety show Queers N Peers, she has also produced an evening of live radio dramas and food (created with Ani Rider), an open mic for playwrights on a rooftop, the world premiere of Anderson Cook's play Shatter, and Rya Szelong's Interabang at Ars Nova's Ant Fest.

As a writer: Publishing journalism, criticism, content, and copy on topics such as BDSM Twitter culture, ill-conceived theater reviews, queer nightlife, new restaurants, City Council hearings, men’s skincare memes, and more for outlets like Apartment Therapy, Vice, Mashed, The Nation, MEL Magazine, Nylon, Paper Mag, Bitch Media, Gothamist, and NY Mag's Bedford + Bowery. At NYU, they completed an honors thesis on the representation of BDSM in American theater and presented research at the Comparative Drama Conference. 

As a theater artist and performer, Cassidy wrote and performed The Sexual Pioneers Talk Show, a research-based comedic talk show exploring early sexuality, and 50 Shades of Graves, an interactive sex education musical co-composed with Caitlin Cobb-Vialet. She’s also made plays about BDSM dungeon bathrooms, a trailer park community of sex offenders, and the gentrification of Times Square’s peep shows. Sensing a trend here? They don’t really do theater anymore but famously, anything can change in a moment. Recent acting credits include a principal role in a staged reading of new musical Tiffany Karter at The Brick and an assortment of sketch comedy.

For updates on upcoming gigs and projects, follow me on Instagram or Twitter because I’m bad at updating this.