For its brand new festival Come As You Are, Camden People’s Theatre welcomes a host of gender-anarchists with more questions than answers, as we confront (and solve?) all the world’s issues regarding female, male, between and beyond. It’s not going to be pretty – but it might just be beautiful.
In the last few years, progressive thinking about gender has gone mainstream, and understanding has developed of gender as infinite variety. More and more individuals are reclaiming the right to define their genders, their bodies, their selves. Some have called this “the ultimate forum for self-expression”, some “the next civil rights frontier”. Either way, it’s a destabilising and liberating cultural change. Come join us at CPT as we interrogate and celebrate gender from cis to trans, from binary to beyond.
Come As You Are will be headlined by Bullish by Milk Presents, commissioned by CPT and supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation. Also in the programme, Shorty by Hester Chillingworth of the cult performance collective Getinthebackofthevan; the cabaret lecture Journey from Man to Woman by CPT favourite and performance art superstar Mamoru Iriguchi an experimental new work from Ellie (Are You Lonesome Tonight?) Stamp; and brand new works-in-progress – at our Big Bang events – by artists including Tom Marshman, Griffyn Giligan (Hir, Bush Theatre) and Azara Meghie.
Come As You Are is the latest in a series of cutting-edge performance festivals at CPT addressing contemporary political, social or cultural themes. Recent successes include ‘Whose London Is It Anyway?’ (2016, on the housing crisis), ‘Calm Down, Dear’ (2013-18, on feminism) and ‘Hotbed’ (2017, exploring sex and sexuality).
