Pic credit: Boyan Geordiev
A year ago, multi-award-winning theatre director Andrew Keates woke up in a shed at the bottom of a garden pumped full of drugs and on the brink of a heart attack after being sexually assaulted by two men.
Now a year sober, he has now launched Queer Theatre, a London-based LGBTQ+ theatre and production company; proud to tell LGBTQ+ stories and unashamedly committed to nurturing queer talent.
For 38-year-old Andrew this new venture sums up what he wants to give back to the LGBTQ+ community, particularly for queer performers and theatre-makers, who often feel isolated.
At its launch on Thursday, 12 September at the iconic Two Brewers in Clapham, he unveiled a series of strands to this new venture, “Every Monday evening, we’ll host weekly acting classes where queer individuals can learn, experiment, and grow together. These sessions will focus on exploring queer material and issues, with the aim of building a strong community of LGBTQ+ performers.”
Future plans include a collaboration with The Groucho Club to create a queer networking event for LGBTQ+ creatives called Luvvie, knowingly named after the term coined by Queer Theatre’s patron and gay icon Stephen Fry.
They plan to offer queer scratch and comedy nights, showcases and next year Andrew hopes to mount a queer playwriting festival for new LGBTQ+ work and his highly successful podcast, the Show People Podcast is being relaunched as a live show at the historic Nell of Old Drury pub, opposite Theatre Royal Drury Lane. And that’s just the beginning!
More info HERE
Look out for my no-holds barred interview feature with Andrew coming soon
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