Criminal Queerness Festival is a signature National Queer Theater program that supports the development and production of new plays by international and immigrant theater-makers and playwrights experiencing censorship or criminalization in their countries of origin. This is a co-production between National Queer Theater and HERE and presented at HERE’s Mainstage Theater.

WHAT YOU ARE TO ME

Written 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

About the Playwright: 

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). 

Schedule:

Friday, June 13: What You Are To Me – 7:00pm

Wednesday, June 18: What You Are To Me – 7:00pm

Friday, June 20: What You Are To Me – 7:00pm (Zine Fair – Pre-Show)

Saturday, June 21: What You Are To Me – 7:00pm

Saturday, June 22: What You Are To Me – 2:00pm