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Part Of Camden People’s Theatre’s Come As You Are Festival

Scratch Night

+ With a special performance by Melody Sproates

A night of explosive new work from local artists, exploring trans, non binary and gender queer identities.

Our Come As You Are Festival Scratch event will feature three 15 minute performances of new ideas in development from Charice Bhardwaj, Katherine Stevens and Chris White, plus a special performance by Melody Sproates. Expect brand new works in progress, never-before-seen ideas and some of the freshest work from the most innovative and exciting local theatre-makers.

Performances

Charice Bhardwaj: Hot Neck Pink

Last year, I moved to Amsterdam and did the most cliché thing a young woman can do there, which is to break up with her boyfriend, chop off her hair, stumble through an introspective car-crash, learn how to dance again, and meet a girl that blows her mind and sexuality to pieces. Except ‘cliché’ doesn’t really apply to brown girls with dads who call to check if they got home from Lidl safely. Join me on my queer, awkward dance into the hot-pink unknown as I grapple with boobs, bitterballen and being brown.

Katherine Stevens: Are You Comfortable?

What makes ‘YOU’? Is it how you stand? How you talk? Is it the clothes you wear? The way you think? Do other people know who you are? Who you really are?

Are You Comfortable? is an interactive spoken-word performance which asks audiences to interrogate their understanding of their own gender, and the ways in which they self-identify. Guided by poetry and movement, Are You Comfortable? makes us look at ourselves differently. Through a series of meditations, exercises and cues, you engage personally with the comfort / discomfort of yourself and others.

Chris White: Butcher

Shannon and Chris are twins. One is a butcher, one is a poet. Together they look at what it means to grow up in a world that has divided them by gender.

Chris is a writer, performer and poet who lives in Exeter. Shannon is a butcher from Coventry who hasn’t been on-stage since school. They have no idea what’s going to happen. But it will involve words – and meat.

Please note this performance will contain live butchery.

Special performance by Melody Sproates

Melody is sick and tired of being asked ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ so they’ve made a lip sync to explain that… They’re neither. Whether it be your hairstyle, clothes or even just the way you talk, we are often judged or put into one single category of ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. This piece is a rebellion against those labels, using the words of Eminem, transgender activists, Terrorcore, Piers Morgan, The Police and many more. This performance on self discovery and acceptance reaches out to an audience and tells them that it is ok to be whoever you are, as long as they are their true, authentic and happy self.

Venue: Voodoo Lounge, Exeter Phoenix