Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Cph Queer Theatre Festival presents a variety of international queer theatre performances ranging from an australian cabaret created by Moira Finucane, a hilarious ensemble comedy by Neil Labute, a naked solo performance,  pop-up premieres, panel debates, artist gatherings and a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with the artistic process.

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Hot Meat Artist residency

10 Day Artist residency with Directors, Writers, actors and designers from all over the world. 

UK: HOT MEAT is a new-play development and artist residency program, with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community, being presented by HIT- Copenhagen under CPH Queer Theatre Festival, in collaboration with Det Kolde Bord.
Queer theatre artists from around the world are invited to Copenhagen for 10 days of performances and residencies, giving them the unique opportunity to showcase the best of LGBTQ+ theatre and collaborate with Scandinavian artists in co-creation and presentation of new LGBTQ+ drama. During the 10-day residency, theatre practitioners will work together with other artists from around the world to create 1 of 4 new pop-up plays, that will premiere during Copenhagen 2021 – WorldPride and EuroGames,

DK: : HOT MEAT er et 10-dages ophold for Instruktører, dramatikere, skuespillere, og designere fra verdenen rundt, med formålet om at skabe og præsentere international queer kunst under Copenhagen 2021 – WorldPride og EuroGames.

SPILLETIDER:12-20 August 2021 (Specifikke tidspunkter TBA)

VENUE: Folketeatret, Rainbow square, Sports arena, Ofelia &  Rådhuset. 

VARIGHED: 1 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR/DRAMATIKER: TBA

MEDVIRKENDE: TBA

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

The Normal Heart

UK: Regretfully we announce that due to the currecnt COVID 19 travel restrictions, this performance has been postponed. Please stay tuned for details on the new date coming soon.

During the early 1980s, Jewish-American writer and gay activist Ned Weeks struggles to pull together an organization focused on raising awareness about the fact that an unidentified disease is killing off an oddly specific group of people: gay men largely in New York City. Dr. Emma Brookner, a physician and survivor of polio, as a consequence of which she is using a wheelchair, is the most experienced with this strange new outbreak and bemoans the lack of medical knowledge on the illness, encouraging the abstinence of gay men for their own safety, since it is unknown yet even how the disease is spread. Ned, a patient and friend of Brookner, calls upon his lawyer brother, Ben, to help fund his crisis organization; however, Ben’s attitude toward his brother is to give merely passive support, ultimately exposing his apparent homophobia. For the first time in his life, meanwhile, Ned falls in love, beginning a relationship with New York Times writer Felix Turner.

DK: Vi befinder os i New York i 80’erne, hvor en dødelig sygdom spreder sig blandt homoseksuelle mænd. Ned Weeks, en forfatter og aktivist kæmper for at skabe opmærksomhed om den mystiske sygdom. Stykket takler kærlighed, fordomme, og tragedie i et homofobisk verden. 

SPILLETIDER: TBA

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Andrew Keates

MEDVIRKENDE: TBA

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

The Money Shot

UK: Two famous movie stars, who are anxious not to let their stars go out, get together with their respective lovers to discuss filming a sex scene in their upcoming movie — for real. It’s been years since either one’s had a hit, and they are desperately hoping the latest movie by a hot-shot European director could change that. What follows is a comedic romp through the raging insecurities, petty power struggles and name-dropping absurdities that comes with the fame and fortune of being a movie star. Egos are shattered, fistfighting ensues, and everyone drinks entirely too much alcohol… all well before dinner. Neil Labute’s no-holds barred satire, The Money Shot, invites you into Hollywood’s inner circle while holding up a mirror to each of us, implicating our role in this culture in which very little is sacred and nearly nothing is taboo. As the evening devolves, the play asks, “How far will you go to hold on to fame?”

DK: The Money Shot spilder ingen tid i sin undersøgelse af privilegie og selvtillid (eller manglen derpå) i Hollywood. Vi kommer ind på prioriteringer og perspektiver så absurde, at vi kun kan reagere på hvor komisk et dilemma vores karakterer befinder sig i. Stykket er baseret på adskillige virkelige hændelser, hvilket understreger den forfærdeligt absurde Hollywood-mentalitet. Respekt, karriere, hemmeligheder, og meget mere er på spil i The Money Shot. To Hollywood stjerner sætter deres partnere stævne for at diskutere hvordan de bedst kan redde deres filmkarrierer fra forfald. En excentrisk europæisk filminstruktør har foreslået, at de i den kommende film laver en ægte sex scene i stedet for at lade som om. Før de kan acceptere dette grænseoverskridende tilbud, skal de have lov af deres partnere og der skal sættes nogle regler for langt de må gå.

SPILLETIDER: 13. august kl 19.00 / 14. august kl 14.00 & 19.00 / 15. august kl 12.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Jeremy M. Thomas

MEDVIRKENDE: Dina Rosenmeier, Tomm Voss, Dorte Rømer & Mikka Deleuran 

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Berghain

UK:

An Alice-in-Wonderland journey through the famous Berliner disco. Berghain is the home of techno music, and here, the party never stops.

Berghain is the world premiere of a brand new play by the Reumert-winning playwright Magnus Iuel Berg, with music composed by Simon Muchinsky, from the famous Danish band When Saints Go Machine.

The performance is performed in repertoire with “feminine octagon (or, aristoteles can eat me),” as a part of HIT-Copenhagen’s season and  LGBTQ+ performers presented in collaboration with Bøssehuset.

DK: Berghain er en scenekunstnerisk oplevelse, hvor koncert- og teaterformer smelter sammen til en ny hybrid: et teknodrama. Publikum guides gennem Berghain, den legendariske Berliner natklub, ved hjælp af tre skuespillere og en live DJ og bliver dermed inddraget i den dramatiske fortælling, et moderne eventyr, hvor det sammen med hovedpersonen – som er personificeret gennem tre skuespillere – træder ud af trygheden og oplever sindsomstyrtende ting. Det er en drømmerejse, en eskapistisk flugt fra virkeligheden, ned i kaninhullet og ind i mørket, for igen at vende tilbage til virkeligheden – måske med nye indsigter eller bare en smule forandret.

SPILLETIDER: 12. august kl 21.00 / 16. august kl 21.00

VENUE: Folketeatret / Det Kgl Teater

VARIGHED: 1

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Jeremy M. Thomas

MEDVIRKENDE: Simon Muschinsky, Daniel Niel Ash, Kristen Flanagan, Jon G. Vopnfjörð, Theresa Mangara, Chris Vincent

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

feminine octagon [or, aristotle can eat me]

UK: Allure and Candy become goddesses. A man falls from the sky. Flowers + Mary Shelley fall in love. & cam girl Eurydice_19969 wants to make that ca$$$h. feminine octagon [or, aristotle can eat me] is one hour/one night/one hundred nights in the search for an unforgettable, life-changing party. A genre-smashing, sophisticated maelstrom of sex, sexuality, culture and power, feminine octagon [or, aristotle can eat me], by award-winning American playwright Amy Gijsbers van Wijk, is given its world premiere in Copenhagen. Performed in rep with Berghain as part of House of International Theatre’s season of LGBTQ+ oriented plays, presented in collaboration with Bøssehuset.

DK: Gudinder, forfatteren bag Frankenstein, og en cam girl, blandt andet. Dette stykke er en skør sammenblandning af karakterer, genrer, effekter, og temaer som magt, sex, og kærlighed. Skrevet af den amerikanske Amy Gijsbers van Wijk, nu får stykket verdenspremiere i København.  

SPILLETIDER: 14. august kl 17.00 / 15. august kl 12.30

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR:

Jessica O’Hara Baker

MEDVIRKENDE: Michelle Bowman Bak, Victor Hugo, Gertrud Magnusson, Tjarli Simone Majumdar Selvig, Seren Oroszvary, Liff Monica Thomsen

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

On the Way to the Sawmill

UK: In Japan, the term hikikomori refers to reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from society, extremely isolated and confined in their bedrooms. Sometimes for years. This is a hikikomori’s space. We observe what he is watching… These texts, with a violent, poetic, and sometimes epic tone, dissect the origin and consequences of violence; of how violence generates violence. It talks about revenge, suicide and terrorism, victims of sexual abuses and about the victims’s traumas of international conflicts. Here you have the dark side of humanity; the abuses of our societies, our own abuses as individuals, and the consequences of this on our present days.

This hikikomori is just like us. Someone wishing to exist, looking for hope; the metaphor of loneliness.

DK: I Japan refererer ‘hikikomori’ til indadvendte unge eller voksne som trækker sig tilbage fra samfundet og lever under ekstrem isolation i deres soveværelser, nogle gange i årevis. Dette er en hikikomori’s rum. Vi observerer hvad han ser… Teksterne er voldelige, poetiske, nogle gange episke i deres dissekering af voldens kilder og konsekvenser, og af hvordan vold avler vold. De handler om hævn, selvmord, terrorisme, ofre for sexmisbrug og trauma i internationale konflikter. Her er menneskehedens mørke side, vores samfunds misbrug, vores egne misbrug som individer, og konsekvenserne deraf på vores tid.

SPILLETIDER:  16. august kl 19.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Marco Margoa 

MEDVIRKENDE: Ruth Salas, Maxwell Chartey, & Marco Magoa

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

My Body My Nation

UK: My Body My Nation looks at the correspondence between Self and Body. A one-person, multidisciplinary performative act, where the ownership over the physical body is examined within social, political and ethical contexts.
In the era of campaigns such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, Aloni would like to interrogate the archaeological and anthropological identities of our physical body.
Via autobiographical elements and by responding to current political and social narratives, My Body My Nation attempts to decolonise the physical body from the cultures and manners that have been imposed upon it.
“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” – Mahatma Gandhi
My Body My Nation was created in creative residencies in The Netherlands, Denmark and Australia.

DK: My Body My Nation handler om sammenhængen mellem Selv og Krop. Een person i en multidisciplinær forestilling, hvor ejerskab af kroppen undersøges i forhold til sociale, politiske, og etiske sammenhænge. Aloni udforsker kroppens arkæologiske og antropologiske identiteter. My Body My Nation forsøger at dekolonisere kroppen fra de kulturer og normer der er blevet lagt over på den. Projektet er udviklet i Holland, Danmark, og Australien.

SPILLETIDER: 17. august kl 19.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Keren Rosenberg, Israel Aloni

MEDVIRKENDE: Israel Aloni

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Feelings are Facts

UK: sensual howl of a trans-fem voice of resistance. A queer elegy. An act of liberation. Tender witchcraft that arises from love and anger. What happens when choreography of feelings, memories and traumas become a space for transformation and healing? As a non-binary artist Valentine Tanz works with the notions of loss and death. This experience becomes a material for performance making situated in site specific ritual. It shapeshifts and reacts to the local environment.

DK: Et sanseligt hyl fra en trans-fem modstandsstemme. En queer elegi. En handling af frigørelse. Stille heksekunst der opstår af kærlighed og vrede. Hvad sker der når en koreografi af følelser, minder, og traumaer bliver til et sted for omdannelse og helbredelse? Som nonbinær kunstner arbejder Valentine Tanz med ideerne om tab og død. Oplevelsen bliver materiale for en forestilling som foregår i et lokations specifikt ritual. Den forvandler sig og reagerer på det lokale miljø.

SPILLETIDER: 18. august kl 19.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Valentine Tanz

MEDVIRKENDE: Valentine Tanz & Tania-Kristen Ballentine 

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Harry Clarke

UK: This sexual, biographical thriller follows young American barista Harry – or is it Philip? –  who escapes to the bright lights of  New York from the American Midwest, and re-invents himself using an alter-ego as an Englishman,  accent and all. We follow breathlessly Harry’s attempts to re-invent in this way his own (real?) timid self , to escape a cruel, abusive childhood, a now dead, alcoholic, homophobic father and overwhelmed dying mother. We watch Harry con his way into a series of amorous adventures with New York high society, all in the hands of just one actor in a theatre, playing 19 personalities, in a masterful range of accents and flashbacks. This is a play that has the audience believing what was never really there and praying despite the fear that  you can be whoever you want to be.

DK: Harry Clarke handler om den stille hovedperson og hans alter ego Harry Clarke, en udadvendt libertine som drager ud på et eventyr som får en til at grine højt mens man krummer tæer samtidigt.  

SPILLETIDER: 17. august kl 17.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Joseph Sherlock

MEDVIRKENDE: Jody Fish

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

The Shy Manifesto

UK: A HIT-Copenhagen production and a critically acclaimed success, The Shy Manifesto originally premiered in 2020 and due to demand is now being performed under CPH STAGE – INTERNATIONAL DAYS. This hilarious and moving dramatic comedy is in English, with a tour de force performance by British actor Daniel Ash. This is his debut lead solo role in Copenhagen, after drama training in the UK and now Denmark, where he is currently based.
The Shy Manifesto is a tender, bitter-sweet coming-of-age dark comedy from 2019, about growing up shy and along with the pressures and double-edged sword of the social media age. 17-year old bookworm Harry, stuck in Bournemouth, is surrounded in life by overconfident people. He has pretty much only his own room for company and decides to face his own demons after the utter chaos of his drunken escapades the night before.
This play is as hilarious as it is poignant. Through the digital universe of his vlog, Callum delivers a potent manifesto, which reveals his intimate thoughts about sexuality, society, humiliation, self loathing, and ultimately his quest for acceptance.
Shyness has rarely been explored in drama and in this piece, peppered equally by hilarious and poignant moments, “the writing is a gift to actors: light and energetic, lacking in pretension and full of compassion.”

DK: Denne bitter-søde komedie var totalt udsolgt i 2020, men nu har publikum påny chancen for at følge med på scenen, når den 17-årige Callum går ind i sit digitale univers og leverer et stærkt manifesto. En forrygende forestilling med fokus på Callums intime tanker om seksualitet, samfund og søgen efter accept. Følg med mens Callum skaber en live-blog sammen med publikum og streamer sin generthed ud til verden. 

 SPILLETIDER: 18. august kl 17.00 

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Jeremy M. Thomas

MEDVIRKENDE: Daniel Neil Ash

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Southern Bedfellows

UK: Southern Bedfellows follows the love relationship and passionate identity struggles between two children, both of them growing up on a fluid, non-binary gender spectrum – facing choices unseen by any but themselves. As teenagers, they challenge the universal boundaries of sexuality, gender, poverty and religion. Sparks fly when identities are challenged. What happens through it all, to their gentle yet violent willingness to love only each other? Come and see… Don’t miss this seminal fresh work by one of the most significant voices in playwrighting today: American, non-binary playwright Riley McCarthy. Southern Bedfellows is part of HIT’s season focusing on new LGBTQ+ stories, in collaboration with Bøssehuset.

DK: Southern Bedfellows på CPH Stage er en verdenspremiere instrueret af den danske instruktør Christoffer Berdal. I 2020 opførte Jody Fish det kritikerroste stykke “Harry Clarke”, som ligeledes udforskede kønsidentitet. Southern Bedfellows (Sengekammerater fra syden”) følger to ikke-binære kønsidentitetsbørn Jo Ellen and under deres opvækst i den sydlige amerikanske delstat Alabama. Temaer som seksualitet, kønsidentitet, fattigdom og religion udforskes. Stykket tager os på en rejse ind i deres forhold igennem 16-år, hvor gnisterne flyver, og både deres identiteter og viljestyrke til at leve sammen udfordres. 

SPILLETIDER: 19. august kl 19.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Christoffer Berdal

MEDVIRKENDE: AnneLise Nielsen & Jody Fish

Cph Queer Theatre Festival

Glory Box

UK: The extravagant and seductive Moira Finucane returns with GLORY BOX. She reaches us live from Australia, a digital stream feeding the live and glamorous drag performance in front of you. A mixed media provocation in all its glory! Moira will also conduct a workshop in Copenhagen using the same digital approach.

DK: Den overdådige og forførende Moira Finucane vender tilbage med GLORY BOX. Hun optræder for os live fra Australien, hvor en digital stream bringer den glamourøse drag forestilling lige til dig. Oplev en fantastisk provokation via blandede medier! Moira afholder også en workshop i København med den samme digitale tilgang.

SPILLETIDER: 19. august kl 21.00 / 20. august kl 19.00 & kl. 21.00

VENUE: Folketeatret Nørregade

VARIGHED: 1 1/2 time

SPROG: Engelsk

INSTRUKTØR: Moira Finucane 

MEDVIRKENDE: Moira Finucane & Surprise Guest Star 

Testimonials

What People are Saying

Cph Culture

The Shy Manifesto by Michael Ross : “Daniel Niel Ash er alene på scenen i små 90 minutter, men sjældent har man set en mere fornøjelig monolog end denne… Ingen vil gå uberørt hjem efter Daniel Niel Ashs præstation.”

 

The Shy Manifesto by Michael Ross : “Jeremy M. Thomas har iscenesat med masser af humor og ømhed… Daniel Neil Ash er meget troværdig som den rastløse og sky Callum, og han har en vidunderlig indlevelse i de historier han fortæller.”

CPH Post 

Harry Clarke by David Cale : “It’s jaw-dropping how the same actor can look both unremarkable and devilishly sexy with a flick of the head. Oh, and he can sing too…Monologues can be a lonely business, but he filled the space effortlessly, deliberately sharing almost constant eye contact with the audience as he took them into his world. It was hard to look away.”

“Jody Fish som alene på scenen holder os fanget i historien fra første replik til den sidste. I et væld af forskellige roller og accenter er han både dampende forførende sexet som Harry Clarke og forrygende morsom som Matt Smiths amerikanske overklassemor. At forestillingen lykkedes skyldes at han er så stærk en formidler af teksten i en stram og detaljerig Harry Clarke iscenesættelse af Joseph Sherlock.” 

Don’t Miss

Cph Queer Theatre Festival August 12-20, 2021