Criminal Queerness Festival
Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF) is National Queer Theater‘s Obie Award Winning initiative developing groundbreaking new plays by queer artists from around the world fighting censorship or criminalization in their home countries. Straight from sold-out runs at Lincoln Center and PAC NYC, CQF has been featured in the New York Times, and is a recipient of the Mayor’s Grant for Cultural Impact.
This is a Co-Production between HERE and National Queer Theater featuring three productions June 11-28 at HERE’s Mainstage: Tomorrow Never Came, What You Are To Me and frikiNation.
TOMORROW NEVER CAME by Jedidiah Mugarura
Directed by Ogemdi Ude
Set in 1987 Uganda, Tomorrow Never Came follows Lawrence Muhumuza, a war hero struggling with the personal cost of the liberation he fought for. Torn between duty, desire, and the life he is expected to lead, Lawrence is caught in a web of political tension, secrecy, and forbidden love. As he prepares to leave his wife, Rhoda, for his lover, Sam, the weight of his choices collides with a nation still healing from war and betrayal. In a world where survival often means silence, Lawrence must confront the impossible question—can one truly be free if they are forced to live a lie? Through a gripping and emotionally charged narrative, Tomorrow Never Came explores themes of love, power, and the sacrifices made in the name of liberation.
Content warnings: References to war and its violence
WHAT YOU ARE TO ME by Dena Igusti
Directed by Keng S. Meateanuea
1994, Jakarta Indonesia. Sari is an aspiring singer hoping to achieve her dreams of stardom through table performances at her best friend’s lesbian discoteque nights. One of her song numbers leads to a chance encounter with Lisa, a determined journalist. But when Sari is forced to flee from the aftereffects of Suharto’s US-backed dictatorship and marry a family friend in Queens, the two must end their relationship to conform to the pressures of survival and migration. Years later, their love story is discovered by an emerging zine translator in Queens, who attempts to trace their current whereabouts. Utilizing excerpts of interviews with two generations of Indonesian lesbians affected by the 1998 Jakarta Riots, What You Are To Me is a look at the long-censored Indonesian lesbian zine movement, generational differences on what it means to be out, and what it means to love when everything else gets in the way.
Content warnings: Mentions of rape, death, homophobia
frikiNATION by Krystal Ortiz
Directed by Rula A. Muñoz
Music and Lyrics by EsKoria
frikiNation is a historical, bilingual, Cuban punk rock jukebox musical that tells the true story of young punks in Cuba in the early 1990s who took extreme measures to rig the communist system in their favor. In an attempt to access a higher quality of life within the government sanctioned HIV sanitariums, punks across the island started injecting themselves with HIV-positive blood. Using a 2003 album by Cuban punk band EsKoria, frikiNation tells this powerful history by following a pregnant rebel, her new skeptical lover, and a band of misfit friends as they fight to survive and create music in a society that pushes them to the margins. With the help of Maria, a cultural programs director determined to educate and protect them, they navigate love, freedom, and a dangerous plan to secure a better life—no matter the cost.
Content warnings: Abortion, police violence, incarceration.
2025 Criminal Queerness Festival
Co-presented by National Queer Theater and HERE
Dates: June 11-28, 2025
Running Time: All three shows each between 90-120 minutes
Location: HERE Mainstage Theater, 145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY
Ticket Prices: $25 standard; $35 true cost
Festival Schedule:
Wednesday, June 11: Tomorrow Never Came – 7:00p
Friday, June 13: What You Are To Me – 7:00p
Tuesday, June 17: Tomorrow Never Came – 7:00p
Wednesday, June 18: What You Are To Me – 7:00p
Thursday, June 19: Tomorrow Never Came – 7:00p
Friday, June 20: What You Are To Me – 7:00p
Saturday, June 21: Tomorrow Never Came – 2:00p
Saturday, June 21: What You Are To Me – 7:00p
Sunday, June 22: Tomorrow Never Came – 7:00p
Sunday, June 22: What You Are To Me – 2:00p
Tuesday, June 24: frikiNation – 7:00p
Wednesday, June 25: frikiNation – 7:00p
Thursday, June 26: frikiNation – 7:00p
Friday, June 27: frikiNation – 7:00p
Saturday, June 28: frikiNation – 2:00p
ABOUT NATIONAL QUEER THEATER:
Mission: National Queer Theater is an innovative theater collective dedicated to celebrating the brilliance of generations of LGBTQ+ artists and providing a home for unheard storytellers and activists. By serving our elders, youth, and working professionals, NQT creates a more just future through radical and evocative theater experiences and free community classes.
Vision: Believing in the power of theater to effect sweeping social change, National Queer Theater cultivates a more just, joyous, and empowered intersectional queer community that is celebrated in all corners of society. Through our art and free community programs we create and organize together, working towards a more equitable vision of a world bursting with pride.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS:
Jedidiah Mugarura is a storyteller descended from the people of Nkore. Their storytelling seeks to find and reimagine the missing vowels to the songs we once sang before colonial violence, to project a future of agency and possibility for those still negotiating their bodies in empire.
Dena Igusti is an Indonesian Muslim writer born and raised in Queens, New York. They are the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, 2020), which has been listed as a 2022 Perennial Award Winner, 2020 Harvard Bookstore Staff Pick, and Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021. They are the Inaugural 2023 NYFA Ryan Hudak Playwright Award Winner. Their work has been featured in BOAAT Press, Peregrine Journal, The Margins, and other publications. Their work has been produced and performed at LA Times, The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, Women Deliver, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, Players Theatre, The Public, and more. They have been featured in Business Insider, Teen Vogue, American Theatre Magazine, and more. They are a More Art Engaging Artist Fellow, NYSCA Grant Recipient, Asian American Writers’ Workshop Open City Fellow, Baldwin for the Arts Resident, Best of the Net Nominee, and more. They have been commissioned by The Miranda Family Fund. Their forthcoming poetry collection Ecdysis: Cacophony of Skins releases in May 2025 with fourteen poems (London).
Krystal Ortiz is a Cuban-American playwright and performer based in both Chicago and NYC. frikiNation has been in development since 2018 and has been supported over the past year by UrbanTheater Company, The Department of Chicago Cultural Affairs, The Movement Theatre Company, The Sol Project, Musical Theatre Factory, ¡OYE! Group, and National Queer Theater. Krystal is also co-producing a documentary about the history of los frikis cubanos with director Carlos Lopez Estrada. Krystal is currently under commission for a new musical via the Goodman Theatre’s 2024-2025 New Stages Residency with collaborator Satya Jnani Chavez. Regional performance credits include: Quixote Nuevo (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), Kid Prince and Pablo (New York Stage & Film Powerhouse; Ars Nova). Select Chicago performance credits include: The Writer (Steep Theatre), Anna In The Tropics (Remy Bumppo Theatre Company), Please, Continue [Hamlet] (Chicago Humanities Festival/MCA Stage), Lettie (Victory Gardens), La Havana Madrid (Teatro Vista, Goodman Theatre), and The Fly Honey Show (The Inconvenience). Krystal is an alumnus of New World School of the Arts in Miami, FL and The Theatre School at DePaul University. www.krystalortiz.com
EsKoria
Founded as Eskoria del Odio, the band performed regularly in Santa Clara and other cities in Cuba, promoting a punk movement reflected in the bands put together by its former members. In 1995 they recorded the demo Puta vida, of poor quality, followed by Al fin, por fin in February 2003. The band’s career, marked by ups and downs and periods of inactivity, was cut short by the murder of its leader, Wiliam Fabian, on January 31, 2010. Since then, several concerts have been organized in his memory. The last surviving member of the band, Pedro Luis Rios, currently resides in Montreal, Canada, and performs with his band, Beyond Breach.