Thinking Theater NYC

The National Queer Theater,  which fosters and supports LGBTQ+ communities through social justice in the performing arts, produces socially-conscious plays about issues in the community, and raises awareness about LGBTQ rights, has  announced the inaugural Criminal Queerness Festival. The first-of-its-kind festival, sponsored by WorldPride and the Stonewall Community Foundation, will take place from June 13 - July 7, 2019 at IRT Theater. Coinciding with WorldPride 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the festival explores the criminalization of LGBTQ communities in some 70 countries where same-sex sexual relations are punishable by law and queer artists are otherwise censored.  In its inaugural year, the Criminal Queerness Festival will feature the work of four LGBTQ playwrights originating from Egypt, China, Tanzania, and Pakistan.  The Criminal Queerness Festival is presented as part of IRT Theater’s 3B Development Series, and festival partners in...

June is the First Fall Written by Yilong Liu Directed by Michael Leibenluft Presented by Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America at the New Ohio Theatre March 31-April 20, 2019 L to R: Alton Alburo, Chun Cho, Karsten Otto, and Stefani Kuo in  June is the First Fall . Photo Credit: Maria Baranova One of the first sounds that the audience hears in Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America’s production of Yilong Liu’s June is the First Fall is the engines of a jetliner, as young, gay Chinese man Don (Alton Alburo) returns from New York City to his family home in Hawai’i’s Manoa Valley. Don’s flight stands in for the various cross-cultural and geographical axes that impact the characters in this play; and with June is the First Fall , second-prize winner of the Kennedy Center’s 2017 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, making its New York premier, Yangtze Rep, in its 27th year, “hope[s] to give more prominence to queer Asian and Asian-American narratives” in a year that also marks ...