Earlier this month and in May, we covered a number of festivals centering and featuring queer theatre creators. Here are a few more that are upcoming. Are we missing a festival? Reach out to at@tcg.org for consideration, as we amplify queer voices during Pride Month. And stay up to date with our social media platforms as we share stories of queer theatremakers we’ve written.
Criminal Queerness Festival
NEW YORK CITY: The National Queer Theater’s 2025 Criminal Queerness Festival will be the official theatre event of New York City Pride, with readings presented at HERE Arts Center in New York City, June 11-28. Performers include Tony nominee Julyana Soelistyo, Sammy Rae & The Friends’ Debbie Tjong, Netflix’s Michele Selene Ang, and more. The festival, now in its 7th year and first founded for 2019’s WorldPride, annually presents works by international LGBTQ+ playwrights that fight against the criminalization and censorship of queer people.
The plays will include Tomorrow Never Came by Jedidiah Mugarura (June 11-22), about a war hero in 1987 Uganda struggling with the personal cost of the liberation he fought for, directed by Ogemdi Ude, and featuring Dillon Daniel Mutyaba, Imani Pearl, Jason Kisare, Natasha Hakata, Odera Admorah, Petrina Ampeira, and Shiro Kihagi; What You Are to Me by Dena Igusti (June 13-22), about an aspiring singer and a journalist amid the 1994 Indonesian lesbian zine movement, directed by Keng S. Meateanuwat, featuring B. Bastian, Debbie Tiong, Grace Duah, Juliana Soelistyo, Lei Nico, and Michele Selene Ang; and a new historical, bilingual, Cuban punk rock jukebox musical frikiNation (June 24-28), about young punks in Cuba in the early 1990s who took extreme measures to rig the Communist system in their favor, with a book by Krystal Ortiz and music and lyrics by EsKoria, directed by Rula A. Muñoz, music directed/arranged/orchestrated by Alan Mendez, and featuring Adriana Gaviria, Claudia Quesada, Frances Inés Rodriguez, JoJo Fleites, Mateo d’Amato, Nico Raimont, Ryan Ruffing, and Marcelo Camacho.
Creative teams also include dramaturgs Achiro P. Olwoch (Tomorrow Never Came) and Khristián Méndez Aguirre (frikiNation), stage managers Angela Salazar (Tomorrow Never Came), Mars Neri (What You Are To Me), and Valeria Llaneza (frikiNation), production manager Dmitri Barcomi, props/scenic designer Dan Daly, lighting designer Alejandro Fajardo, sound designer Jeremy Kadetsky, co-costume designers Jason Goodwin and Jasmine Canjura, and casting director Peter Dunn.
National Queer Theater is an Obie-winning theatre collective dedicated to celebrating the brilliance of generations of LGBTQ+ artists and providing a home for unheard storytellers and activists. By serving elders, youth, and working professionals, NQT creates a more just future through radical and evocative theatre experiences and free community classes.
Queerly Festival
NEW YORK CITY: FRIGID New York will present the 11th annual Queerly Festival at UNDER St. Marks, June 12-July 3. Most performances will also be available to livestream from home. This year, Queerly is presenting 20 shows that celebrate queer/LGBTQIA2S+ resilience, power, determination, persistence, and resistance, about the history of the queer liberation movement, aggressively nonbinary burlesque, stories of thriving in a world that rejects us, and a flagrant disregard of cishet norms. Titled “Revolting Queers,” it is billed as a “Queer Revolution of joy, rage, strength, exhaustion, and art.”
The lineup includes Mother Sylvia, written and performed by Summer Minerva; Poster Boys, written by Leo Layla Díaz, directed by Hannah Marie Penderson; Lesbian Bigfoot by Anna Margevich; Mary & The Shelleys by Alex Moon; Calvin S. Cato: Disney Single, written and performed by Calvin S Cato; A Spanglish Affair Open Mic, produced by Something from Abroad; The Gay Social Network – A One Woman Show, written and performed by Seerat Jhajj; SEX GODDESS, written and performed by Riel Reddick-Stevens, produced by House and Body; GxDLY by Daddy Doyenne, presented by the Kinky Kafe LLC; Drag History Hour by Bertha Vanayshun; Disko Boy by Sheila Klein and Masha Mikulinsky, presented by Amuse Bouche Company; Boy Meets Girl (or The Trials & Tribulations of a Queer Man Living Under A Curse) by Chetan Rao and Nalini Sharma, presented by Boundless Theater; Reality Check by Sayali Gove; Beneath The Surface by Bailey C Lewis; Gay Cowboys by Ciara Hannon, produced by 11th Hour Productions; Frigid Nightcap; Glitter Uprising: A Deliciously Disobedient Queer Revue by Holli Hemlock; Clay Mommy by Aviva Pearl Creation; Loud & With Feeling by Spencer Joshua Vigil.
Founded in 2014, Queerly is FRIGID New York’s annual celebration of LGBTQIA+ artists. Queerly strives for diversity on- and offstage, seeking out queer teams and artists of all kinds as well as a wide range of shows and performances. Their goal is to provide a space for queer artists who’ve rarely or never seen their identities portrayed onstage to be able to represent themselves and tell their stories their way, as well as to provide a space for queer celebration, pride, and strength.
FRIGID New York’s mission is to provide both emerging and established artists the opportunity to create and produce original work of varied content, form, and style, and to amplify their diverse voices by presenting an array of monthly programming, mainstage productions, an artist residency, and eight annual theatre festivals that create an environment of collaboration, resourcefulness, and innovation.
StageQ’s CapitalQ Theatre Festival
MADISON, WISC.: StageQ presents its 2025 CapitalQ Theatre Festival June 13-21, in a new expanded theatrical celebration for Madison that will last two weeks. In its fourth year, the lineup for the festival includes new shows written by up-and-coming queer playwrights at Drury Stage’s Bartell Theatre. Each single showcase is one hour and 40 minutes.
The plays include The Emperor’s New(er) Clothes by John Mabey, directed by Will French and Emma Fried, described as “weaving a new fairy tale”; Secondhand Grace by Brian Farrey-Latz, directed by Avery Taylor, summarized with the tagline, “History is gay, no matter who tries to take away our stories”; marriage is a story we tell and keep telling by Danielle Frimer, directed by Birdie La Barre, with the tagline, “Diversity Win: Queer Weddings can be stressful too!”; Southies by Jeffrey James Keyes, directed by Chelsea Gaspard, about a fabulous gay dinner party that ends in intrigue; and The Dating Pool by Arianna Rose, directed by Jasmine Ridler, about “hope, love, lust, and nostalgia.” Sliding scale ticket prices range from $20-60.
StageQ’s mission is to celebrate and advance queer representation written about and by LGBTQ+ persons, as Wisconsin’s queer theatre.
The Tank’s PrideFest 2025
NEW YORK CITY: The Tank presents its PrideFest 2025 June 20-29, curated by Max Mooney. A festival of 30 new and imaginative performances from queer artists that center community, the shows address “queer joy, laughter, struggle, resistance, and beauty through a range of mediums including theatre, comedy, puppetry, storytelling, and music,” according to the organizers. “These performances will reflect where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we can go.” The lineup includes:
- June 20: Roachee Babee!, written and performed by Adri Tavares and Night (Iced) Coffee, featuring pieces in development form by Matthew Antonio and Forest Entsminger
- June 21: Queer to Tell’s Captured in Color, Love Jihad by Salwa Meghjee (June 21), directed by Zahra Budhwani; A Travel Story by Max Mooney and music by Connor Nielsen; Eggs, written and directed Clay Baker-Lerner
- June 22: If you like me at my worst by Tré Calhoun, directed by Jacob Sexton; Retro(aid): a musical sankofa offering; Glorianne by Rose Gonzales, directed by Nate Cozens; Femininjection by Neeta Thadani and Jeron Dooling, directed by Persephone Matlaszihua and Jeron Dooling; A Perfect Map of Everything by Connor Geary, directed by Gavin Peterson; Period 7, directed by CJ Donohue
- June 23: Lena Sings! (The Language of Love) by ESG Productions; Let Us Be Glad, Let Us Be Grateful by Declan Collins, directed by Gavin Peterson, Prison Queens; (softspells) by Akane Little and Benja Thompson
- June 24: (softspells) by Akane Little and Benja Thompson; Verse: A Horrible, Horrible Tragedy by Rhett Goldman, directed by Addison Vaughn and Rhett Goldman
- June 25: Verse: A Horrible, Horrible Tragedy by Rhett Goldman, directed by Addison Vaughn and Rhett Goldman; Fish in the Tank, written and directed by Cerulean Long; First Timers’ Club with Dyke Theater Co.; Afraid? Wolf!, directed by Nigel Berkeley
- June 26: The Puritans by Eric Murphy, directed by Amina Khelif; Dylan Guerra Dylan Guerra Dylan Guerra Dylan Guerra, written and performed by Dylan Guerra, directed by Laura Dupper; Horse Camp, featuring Spencer Claus, Christian Miller, Jack Walz, and Audrey Garrett; Shell by Ana Evans and Linnea Scott
- June 27: HomeBody: A Queer Modern Folktale, written and directed by Claire McGinlay and Véro Matheny; Chaos God of the Orion Sun by Aster Drewe, directed by Sundiata Fost’s-Chinjé; Chemicals in the Water by David Quang Pham, directed by Aliyah Curry; Sex and the City: Season 1, Episode 11: “The Drought” Lip Synced Live and in Full, starring Miss Woman the woman
- June 28: Shell by Ana Evans and Linnea Scott; HomeBody: A Queer Modern Folktale, written and directed by Claire McGinlay and Véro Matheny; Chaos God of the Orion Sun by Aster Drewe, directed by Sundiata Fost’s-Chinjé; Chemicals in the Water by David Quang Pham, directed by Aliyah Curry; gay guy inventory 2: actors on actors, a study by Tess Walsh; Mercutio: A Musical Concept, conceived and written by Gregory Patti with Joey Walsh and others, directed by Easton Michaels
- June 29: First Timers’ Club with Dyke Theater Co.
Irish Rep’s Féile Bród
NEW YORK CITY: Irish Repertory Theatre will host its 2025 Féile Bród (Pride Festival) on June 23 in collaboration with On the Quays and Héruma Hazit. The performance is directed by Matt Engle, music directed by Keiji Ishiguri, and curated by Nicola Murphy Dubey. Irish Rep’s annual Pride celebration will showcase the work of LGBTQIA+ Irish and Irish American dancers, musical guests, and musicians, including Jonathan Christopher, Irish dancer KJ Campbell, William Bellamy, Zia, Michael Palmer and Héruma Hazit. Tickets are $25.
Irish Rep’s mission is to provide a context for understanding the contemporary Irish American experience through evocative works of theatre, music, and dance, accomplished by staging the works of Irish and Irish American classic and contemporary playwrights, encouraging the development of new works focused on the Irish and Irish American experience, and producing the works of other cultures interpreted through the lens of an Irish sensibility.
Pride Plays
NEW YORK CITY: After a weekend of readings in D.C. during WorldPride, Pride Plays has announced its lineup for the upcoming New York City readings at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, which will be presented in one day on June 23. These will include Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink, developed with and directed by Nic Cory and presented in association with Breaking the Binary Theatre; Tremolo by Regan Moro, directed by Sivan Battat and presented in association with Fault Line Theatre; Pony by Sylvan Oswald, directed by Will Davis (which was just presented at Woolly Mammoth during the D.C. readings), and The One Who Loves You So by Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke, directed by Emma Went.
Southern Fried Queer Pride Festival
ATLANTA: 7 Stages Theatre presents its 2025 Southern Fried Queer Pride Festival, June 23-29. The company’s 11th annual Pride festival is “hot-n-ready to serve a full week of deep fried art and community in the eclectic and iconic Little Five Points in Atlanta,” as the company’s statement put it. The festival has enhanced its offerings with a large artist market, expanded events, and programming.
7 Stages Theatre is a professional nonprofit theatre company in Little Five Points in Atlanta devoted to engaging artists and audiences by focusing on the social, political, and spiritual values of contemporary culture.
Queer [Re]Public Festival
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: The Theater Offensive (TTO) marks the culmination of TTO’s nearly two-year Emergent Artist Residency and True Colors Residency programs with the inaugural Queer [Re]Public Festival, a groundbreaking four-day celebration of art and performance by and about queer and trans artists of color. Rooted in TTO’s mission to use performance as a tool for liberation and community-building, the Queer [Re]Public Festival is the next evolution in its commitment to uplift QTBIPOC voices and dismantle systems of oppression through transformative and transgressive new work. The works presented will be Victoria Lynn Awkward’s In the Space Between, Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones’ The Messenger, and Annalise “River” Guidry’s Theater of Union. It will take place June 26-29 at Arrow Street Arts in Cambridge. For more, read our previous coverage.
Creative teams include, for In the Space Between, music director Desiré Graham, rehearsal director Sasha Peterson, composer Eden Girma (also known as aden), and score and immersive design by Ian Andrew Askew, Cheyanne Williams, Itohan Edoloyi, and James Gibbel.
The Theater Offensive (TTO) is a Boston-based organization that presents liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color. TTO engages communities in collective expression and builds bridges across differences through the transformative power of performance. Since 1989, The Theater Offensive has been a home for QTPOC expression, visibility, and joy.
OUTWright Theatre Festival
PORTLAND, ORE.: Fuse Theatre Ensemble’s OUTWright Theatre Festival runs throughout June, with a headlining production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins running through June 15, directed by Rusty Tennant and Sara King.
Throughout the festival, special engagements included Scot Zeller’s H@PPY F@GGOT earlier this week, and will culminate with Lijoi to the World: A Celebration of the Work of Ernie Lijoi on June 15. Readings included Merry Xmas and Happy New Queer by Meg Schengen, Dream of a Celestial Night by Ajai Tripathi, Filthy Lucre by Mikki Gillette, and Small Domestic Acts by Joan Lipkin, with one more reading of My White Husband by Leviticus Jelks on June 9.
Fuse Theatre Ensemble has been an incubator for new works by LGBTQIA+ creators and artists and has shown a spotlight on those not normally allowed to take center stage.
Gay for D.C. Theatre
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Gay for D.C. Theatre efforts, spearheaded by WorldPride D.C. and TheatreWashington, began in May and continue into June. The effort encourages theatregoers to attend the many shows programmed by D.C.-area theatre companies that highlight LGBTQIA+ stories, as the city welcomes folks internationally for WorldPride. These include the following productions (an asterisk * denotes a TCG member theatre):
- Arena Stage*: We Are Gathered by Tarell Alvin McCraney (through June 15)
- Folger Theatre: Twelfth Night (through June 22)
- Mosaic Theater Company*: Andy Warhol in Iran by Brent Askari (through June 29)
- Olney Theatre Company: Senior Class (through June 22)
- Shakespeare Theatre Company: Frankenstein by Emily Burns ( through June 29)
- Signature Theatre: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (through June 22)
- Theater J*: The Berlin Diaries (through June 22)
- The Keegan Theatre*: Falsettos (through June 15)
