SCREAMING WEENIE PRODUCTIONS

Established in 1996 the frank is the oldest professional queer theatre company based on the occupied stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wəta?ɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations colonially called Vancouver BC Canada. We play a crucial role in this city’s theatre ecology: we are one of few theatre organizations in the country led by a genderqueer immigrant woman of colour and we collaborate with a large community of 2SLGBTQ+ artists and arts workers. For all of the frank theatre’s activities we hire and share the stories of artists and arts workers who make up a significant portion of our geographic community but who continue to be underrepresented and often excluded from LGBTQ2S theatre. Through the frank’s 20 years of operations as well as our 2020 survey it has become evident that theatre spaces are not fully accessible to queer audiences in particular queer women trans artists and QTBIPOC (Queer and Trans Black Indigenous People of Colour.) Our activities are a direct response to this need for local inclusive queer programming. Through collective approaches we create work that challenges Western Eurocentric and Colonial aesthetics and storytelling. We subvert these methods by engaging collaborators whose practices are rooted in different disciplines cultures abilities and languages. On-going programs include Telling It Bent and a writing workshop for queer trans and Two-Spirit BC youth (ages 14 to 25) and our Mainstage productions. The Telling it Bent program provides emerging writers with the opportunity to gain skills learn decolonial approaches to creation meet other queer artists and explore different genres of writing. The showcase of these short works is presented by the Cultch as part of their IGNITE Youth-Driven Arts Festival. For our 2023-24 Mainstage program we produced an in-person production of How Black Mothers Say I Love You by Trey Anthony presented at The Cultch. We continued with our post-production of Maps of Utopia a film anthology project comprised of three monodramas penned by the country’s leading queer playwrights. We finished our Mother Tongues series this year with a multimedia exhibit. Mother Tongues is a collaboration between the frank theatre community participants and MOSAIC.

Through co-productions and presentations we provide development support and contribute to artist fees marketing and community outreach initiatives for emerging and mid-career queer artists. We also collaborate with other arts organizations to support authentic and community-engaged productions of LGBTQIA2S+ works. This year we co-presented a development public reading of Postcards to My Younger Transexual Self by Christina Cook. This Solo show by GG Literary Award nominee and white trans female writer Christina Cook moves fluidly through time and memory from her trans awakening to her current role as a counselor and mental health care worker. Our New Community Engaged Program Masculinity Reclaimed engages queer community members and artists with a specific lived experience to collectively create new work using verbatim devised and interdisciplinary approaches. This cycle centers on trans masculine dyke butch and non-binary participants who identify with masculinity. The process investigates how queer and trans folks have crafted unique masculinities outside of cisnormativity and cross-generational discourse around masculinity within the queer community. This exploration will benefit queer participants through community-building skill-sharing and intergenerational mentorship having sector-wide implications. Patriarchy is inextricably linked to white supremacy colonialism and queerphobia. We will create new positive models of masculinity by looking to queer and trans communities.