Above The Stag is the UK’s only full time LGBT+ theatre and this week, to coincide with Pride in London, they have two very different but equally compelling plays opening at their brand new Albert Embankment home, in both the main theatre and their new studio performance space.
Grindr: The Opera
Above The Stag have teamed up with Pride in London to bring us the UK premier of Grindr: The Opera, by Erik Ransom, subtitled An Unauthorised Parody. This exciting show mixes the world’s most notorious hook-up app with the over-the-top and exaggerated world of opera.
We meet Grindr, a mythical siren from remote antiquity, who has been awoken from her millennial slumber by technology. The director Andrew Beckett describes her as ‘Aphrodite meets Frank-N-Furter’. Her power, which is derived from human lust, is exhibited as she manipulates her gay devotees in a soaring soprano.
The play mixes up many different musical styles, from baroque to contemporary pop, and takes a humorous look at the changing landscape of gay relationships. The show is being staged in the gorgeous new main theatre space and is running into August.
Runs until 26 August in the Main Theatre
The Penetration Play
One of the most exciting things about the Above The Stag’s swish new home on the Albert Embankment is that they now have a second performance space, known as the Studio. The first production in this space is also their first lesbian focused play, The Penetration Play, by American writer Winter Miller.
It tells the story of two friends, Rain and Ash, and their complicated relationship, which gets even more so when you add in one of their mothers. It’s a fast paced dark comedy that fits perfectly in this exciting new space and is on until 21 July.
Runs until 21 July in the Studio
Tickets from abovethestag.com
Above The Stag Theatre, Arch 72 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall, SE1.
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