NYC Pride Partner National Queer Theater Announces Criminal Queerness Festival at Lincoln Center

National Queer Theater has announced the 2022 Criminal Queerness Festival, an annual international theater festival created in partnership with NYC Pride, will take place from June 21-24 at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, NY.

Founded in 2018 by Adam Odsess-Rubin, Founding Artistic Director of NQT, and Egyptian playwright Adam Ashraf Elsayigh, the Criminal Queerness Festival 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.

NQT celebrates its fourth year hosting the Criminal Queerness Festival at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts during NYC Pride in June for the second year in a row. The Criminal Queerness Festival is one of over 300 events featuring over 1,000 artists included in Lincoln Center's Summer for City initiative, presented as part of the Festival of New York. NQT serves as the official theater partner of NYC Pride.

This year's festival will showcase curated works by playwrights Muleme Steven, Jonathan Opinya Wamukota, and Achiro P. Olwoch, including:

Muleme Steven

Courage Rebirth (Staged Reading) - Tuesday, June 21, at 7:30 pm ET

Synopsis: When lesbian singer Fawzia is displaced by political unrest in her home country of Somalia, she finds asylum and an audience for her songs of hope at a refugee camp in Kenya. There, she garners the support and friendship of LGBT Rights activist David Kato, who helps her get to Uganda. She establishes a career as a music teacher and begins putting out music. When one of her songs goes viral, she is forced to navigate her newfound attention under violent circumstances.

Playwright Bio: Muleme Steven is a gay Ugandan LGBTQ+ advocate, founder and director of an NGO organization called Visual Echoes for Human Rights Advocacy (VEHRA). He is a human rights defender and visual artist born and raised in the Baikwe district. He has a bachelor's degree in Commercial Industrial art and design and is an Illustrator for UHAI EASHRI. He's the head netball coach for the VEHRA netball teams and has certificates in HIV/AIDS prevention and training for the LGBTQ+ community. Muleme's dream is to change attitudes through his art. After graduating from Nkumba in 2011, he enrolled as a fine art teacher in a school within Kampala. During his teaching days, Muleme established contacts within the LGBTQ+ community and decided to join Youth on Rock Foundation, a community-based organization that focuses on LGBTQ+ youth rights. Afterward, he joined Rainbow Mirrors Uganda as a finance officer and became a community peer leader for Ice Breakers Uganda. His dream is to tell stories that others never told through the use of visual illustrations and writing. In 2017, Muleme started Visual Echoes to share his skills with other community members that are interested in various forms of art where they portray the real-life experiences of LGBTI Ugandans.

Jonathan Opinya Wamukota

Stargazer, Beginner's Luck, and Waiting for Gordon (Staged Reading) - Wednesday, June 22, at 7:30 pm ET
Synopsis: A compassionate confrontation with death. A blossoming love squashed by hatred. A star-crossed romance torn apart by secrets. In three short plays, Stargazer, Beginner's Luck, and Waiting for Gordon, Jonathan Opinya Wamukota of Kenya uses his poetic style to craft a picture of the realities of queer love in a society that punishes same-sex romance.

Playwright Bio: For singer, writer, music lover and teacher Jonathan Opinya, the creative realm has been not just an outlet, but a safe space from life's turmoils. The allure of the stage and the written word has always intrigued him as a form of escape. A strange magic that could allow for the loss of oneself in fantastical worlds filled with intrigue, suspense, drama and such colorful characters and yet the safety of the writing desk or the stage is never left. He received his Bachelor's degree in Vocal Studies as a recipient of The Adler-Buchmann International Program for Outstanding Foreign Students from Tel Aviv University and is currently working toward an MA in Clinical Psychology and Music Therapy. Jonathan's interests range from music to literature, design, culture, and dance, all of which he sees as important tools that allow for not only healing, but understanding. Currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, Jonathan spends his days teaching alongside working as an independent contractor for CloudFactory, performing and writing whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Achiro P. Olwoch

The Survival - Friday, June 24, at 7:30 pm ET

Synopsis: Achan, feeling pressure from her mother for not yet being married at 27, falls for Oyat after meeting him at a bar. Unbeknownst to Achan, Oyat is hoping she will be a surrogate for him and his boyfriend's child. When Achan learns the truth from Oyat's boyfriend, John, she must confront her own traditional upbringing to find love and new notions of family in modern Uganda.

Playwright Bio: Achiro Patricia Olwoch hails from Gulu, in Northern Uganda, and she is a writer, playwright and filmmaker. She is currently an artist-at-risk in residence at Westbeth in New York. Achiro lives to write, and she writes to live. She has a good sense of imagination, and even though she bases her writing on real-life situations, she adds a twist of imagination to each and every story. She writes because she would like to make a difference in her community through the different stories that she has to tell. Her stories start conversations and lend a voice to the people that she writes about who are not able to tell their own stories. Her plays On Time, No Cause, The Child Bride, Esterina, and The Surrogate, have had readings and performances around the world. Her present play, The Survival, was born from The Surrogate, and it has taken shape over the years from the changing laws against homosexuality in Uganda. She presently volunteers as the Africa representative on the Women Playwrights International Management Committee and serves as part of the Artistic Collective with the National Queer Theater.

"Being a part of this festival affirms my work as an artist and my existence as a human being who happens to be queer," said Olwoch. "I am excited to see my work come alive on stage - this piece of work carries a whole lot of my blood, sweat and tears. It is a dream come true to be able to see it performed live on stage."

This year's event will feature live on-stage performances as well as virtual panels with the playwrights and other International Artists and activists. Tickets for the performances at Lincoln Center will be free as part of Lincoln Center's Summer for the City program.

"The Criminal Queerness Festival sends a powerful signal around the world that LGBTQ+ people, and specifically artists, have the right to free expression without censorship, violence, or criminalization," said Odsess-Rubin, "This year, the work of Achiro P. Olwoch, Jonathan Opinya, and Muleme Steven showcases the fierce love and resistance of queer artists and activists in Uganda and Kenya, as well as their tremendous craft as playwrights."

The Criminal Queerness Festival was a 2020 NYC Mayor's Grant for Cultural Impact awardee alongside Dixon Place and the NYC Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.

For more information about the Criminal Queerness Festival, visit www.nationalqueertheater.org/criminal-queerness-festival.