Queer Folio Angels

Aim

Queer Folio - a fabulous new collection of creative responses by the LGBTQ+ community to Shakespeare's First Folio.

Want to make a positive difference to the LGBTQ+ community?

Passionate about creativity that brings people together?

Fancy becoming an Angel of the Queer Folio project?

1623 theatre company is looking for people and organisations who would like to sponsor a fabulous collection of exciting new LGBTQ+ responses to Shakespeare’s First Folio – a book containing his plays, first published in 1623. 

If you’d like to sponsor the Queer Folio project, please donate what you can afford and let us know which of the following pieces you would like to sponsor.

QUEER FOLIO 2023, working titles and lead artists:

• Nepo Baby - a canto poem by Aoife O'Connor (King John)
• A Knife to My Heart - a song by Aron Sood (Julius Caesar)
• Titania - a BSL piece by Bea Webster (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• Izzy - a play by Caitlin M Kearns (Measure for Measure)
• A World Elsewhere - a performance by Claire Morley (Coriolanus)
• All's Well - a play by Corinne Kilvington (All's Well That Ends Well)
• Tongue in Cheek - a poem by Dan Webber (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
• Bed of Roses - a soap opera by Dave Payne (Henry VI Parts 1-3, Richard III)
• As You Lick It - an ice-cream show by Ben Spiller (As You Like It)
• Princess of Suave - an epic tale by Edalia Day (Pericles)
• Punk Horror Titus - a bloody play by Leon Fleming (Titus Andronicus)
• Mercutio - a poetic monologue by JD Stewart (Romeo and Juliet)
• Richard's Little World - a scene by Jude / Judi Leath (Richard II)
• Quickly - a video by Karen Spicer (Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Henry V)
• Ford & Page - an experiment by Kate Lewis (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Hidden Letters - a BSL piece by Lara Steward (Henry VIII)
• The Early Hours - a poem by Luke Skilbeck (The Winter's Tale)
• Timon - a dance piece by Maria Slack (Timon of Athens)
• Hector & Achilles - a play by Maria Machin (Troilus and Cressida)
• What's in my Fly? - a game show by Polly Lister (The Merchant of Venice)
• Toxic - a play by Rikki Beadle-Blair (The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet)
• Antonio - a time travel piece by Roz Chalmers (Twelfth Night)
• Othello RE:MX - a poetic dance by Sam Beckett Jr (Othello)
• Un / natural - a visual art piece by Sam Metz (Macbeth)
• Comedy of Errors - a sari shop show by Samir Bhamra (The Comedy of Errors)
• Imogen / Fidele - a movement piece by Shane Gabriel (Cymbeline)
• Leading Character Energy - a play by Simon Marshall (The Tempest)
• Toni & Cleo - a poetry play by Sophie Sparham (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Losing Love's Labour - a BSL piece by Stephen Collins (Love's Labour's Lost)
• A Very Queer Lear - a play by Vince Laws (King Lear)

In return for your sponsorship, you’ll become a Queer Folio Angel - this means your name will be displayed on our website and social media, in an online Queer Folio brochure, and at 10 scratch performances across England.

Queer Folio is a vibrant new reimagining of Shakespeare's complete(ish) works, first published in the 1623 Folio, as part of their 400th anniversary celebrations in 2023. 

LGBTQ+ artists will co-create new artistic responses to the plays with global majority, Deaf, disabled and working-class queer people across England. 

At this stage, the artists will try out ideas in workshops, conversations and scratch / work-in-progress nights that explore the relationship between queer themes in Shakespeare's works and LGBTQ+ experiences in our world today.

The LGBTQ+ community will reclaim Shakespeare's works - and Shakespeare as a queer icon - after four hundred years of far too much straightening out in mainstream culture, which often reworks them as heteronormative.

More than 40 queer artists will co-create brand new works-in-progress with LGBTQ+ communities across England in response to the 1623 Folio and share at 10 public scratch events across the nation and online. 

Scratch events will feature an explosion of creativity including acting, dancing, music, reading, singing and spoken word. All events will be BSL-interpreted. And you're invited. Come join the fun.

The whole project costs £105,765. 

We have already secured £103,765 from Arts Council England and other supporters including Century Theatre, Derbyshire LGBT+, Harlow Playhouse, Leeds Playhouse, Museum of Making, Norwich Theatre Royal, Phizzical Productions, and Theatre Space NE in Sunderland.

So we need to find the final £2,000 to make the project possible. Will you dig deep, donate some quids, and join the theatrical party of the last four centuries? We can't wait to welcome you as a Queer Folio Angel.

Please contact [email protected] for more details.

This project successfully funded on 23rd May 2023