Criminal Queerness Festival Sets Performance Dates, Creative Team, and Ticket Sales

National Queer Theater has announced that its Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF), an annual international theater festival that serves as the official theater partner of NYC Pride, will showcase performances on Friday, June 21, to Saturday, June 29. Back for its sixth year and premiering at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) at the World Trade Center for the first time, CQF will feature plays written by LGBTQ+ artists around the world who have the guts to risk it all–censorship, imprisonment, and violence–for simply sharing their truth. 

This year’s CQF will feature productions of Achiro P. Olwoch’s The Survival, Raphaël Amahl Khouri’s She He Me, and Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko’s Waafrika 123: A Queerly Scripted Tragic Rise to African Fantasia. The 2024 festival celebrates three of the most groundbreaking plays from the first five years of the festival, now more fully developed and designed for the new PAC NYC stage.

This 2024 event at PAC NYC will feature full productions of each play, as well as talkbacks with the playwrights and other artists and activists.

The official performance schedule is as follows:

• Friday, June 21st at 8:00 pm EST - She He Me performance
• Saturday, June 22nd at 3:00 pm EST - She He Me performance
• Saturday, June 22nd at 8:00 pm EST - The Survival performance and talkback
• Sunday, June 23rd at 3:00 pm EST - The Survival performance
• Sunday, June 23rd at 8:00 pm EST - She He Me performance and talkback

• Wednesday, June 26th at 7:00 pm EST - Waafrika 123 performance
• Thursday, June 27th at 7:00 pm EST - The Survival performance
• Friday, June 28th at 8:00 pm EST - Waafrika 123 performance and talkback
• Saturday, June 29th at 2:00 pm EST - Waafrika 123 performance

Tickets for each performance are now available to PAC NYC members for presale. Tickets for the general public will be available for purchase on Tuesday, March 5, through the PAC NYC website pacnyc.orgpacnyc.org/series/criminal-queerness-festival. Tickets will be sold on a “pay-what-you-wish” basis to allow audience members from all walks of life, regardless of socioeconomic status, to view these groundbreaking performances.

The full creative team for the 2024 CQF has been announced. Joining é boylan (Director of Waafrika 123), Raphaël Amahl Khouri (Director of She He Me) and Nadia Guevara (Director of The Survival), are Dmitri Barcomi (Assistant Director), Vaibu Mohan (Production Manager), Mars Neri (Stage Manager), Kevin Jinghong Zhu (Stage Manager), Katherine Bahena-Benitez (Stage Manager), Riw Rakkulchon (Props/Scenic Designer), Moneé Stamp (Lighting Designer), Ryan Gamblin (Sound Designer), Ann C. James (Intimacy Director), Maria Makuka (Dialect Coach) as well as Joseph Hayes (Casting Director) and Begum "Begsy" Inal (Dramaturg).

CQF develops and produces new plays by international LGBTQ+ playwrights from countries that criminalize or censor LGBTQ+ communities. The initiative provides a platform for LGBTQ+ artists and audiences, local and abroad, to learn about the continued fight for queer and trans liberation all around the world. 

In more than 70 countries worldwide, being LGBTQ+ is criminalized, and in 12 countries, queer and trans individuals could be given the death penalty based on their sexuality.Over the years, the CQF has produced playwrights from Syria, Venezuela, Uganda, Kenya, Iraq, China, Pakistan, Tanzania, Egypt, Mexico, India, Lebanon, Poland and Ukraine. 

“We are thrilled to be bringing the Criminal Queerness Festival to PAC NYC, a vibrant new arts center for New Yorkers and international audiences alike,” said Odsess-Rubin. “Using art to protest LGBTQ+ criminalization abroad, the festival sends an important message to queer artists and activists around the world that there is a place for their stories.”

PAC NYC is a dynamic new home for the arts, serving audiences and the creative sector through flexible venues, enabling the facility to embrace wide-ranging artistic programs. The inaugural year will feature commissions, world premieres, co-productions, and collaborative work across theater, dance, music, opera, film and more. The vision for PAC NYC began when then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his team worked to ensure the plan for rebuilding the World Trade Center site included a performing arts center.

“I have been a fan of National Queer Theater’s impactful work through this festival for the past five years,” said Bill Rauch, PAC NYC Artistic Director. “It is especially meaningful for us at PAC NYC to host the Criminal Queerness Festival, given our location at the World Trade Center and our mission to create connections across the world as well as across our city.”

For more information about National Queer Theater, visit www.nationalqueertheater.org.