The Foundation Heartefact Fund is organizing the first LGBTIQ + theater festival, which will run from September 10 to September 14, 2019.
Conceived as an annual event, the festival seeks to shed light on various aspects of the LGBTIQ + community’s struggles in an artistically relevant way and make them more accessible and clearer to a wider audience.
As part of this year’s first edition of the Belgrade Pride Theater Festival, Heartefact Fund is organizing three guest plays.
On September 10th, at the Cultural Decontamination Center, from 8pm, 55 Shades of Gay from Prishtina will be performed. The play was written by Jeton Neziraj and directed by Blerte Neziraj. The piece addresses the issues of LGBTIQ + politics in the Balkans / Europe and, in the form of Burlesque, seeks to point out the complexity and multiplicity of present-day LGBTIQ + life. In a new and authentic way, the play addresses issues of tolerance, activism, the fight for human rights and homophobia.
On September 13, the Gypsy Queen from Manchester, written by Rob Ward and directed by Chris Lawson, will perform at the National Theater on the stage of Rasa Plaovic, from 8 pm. Gypsy Queen is the story of two boxers who discover that dealing with their own identities is a much bigger fight than the one they are fighting in the ring. The show deals with homophobia in sports and tries to emphasize a specific LGBTIQ + perspective and the necessity for more inclusive and comprehensive society.
The Baby Monitor is a play from New York that will close this year’s Belgrade Pride Theater Festival on September 14 at the National Theater on the Rasa Plaovic Stage, from 8pm. The piece explores society’s relationship to same-sex parenting and the deep-rooted prejudices that LGBTIQ+ members continue to struggle with. David Stallings wrote The Baby Monitor, while Antonio Miniño directed it.
Tickets for all shows can be purchased at ticket.rs
The Belgrade Pride Theater Festival was supported by the Embassy of the United States of America, the Embassy of Switzerland and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.