Art Illustration By Raisa Monroe-Yavneh.
CRIMINAL QUEERNESS FESTIVAL 2026
June 10th - 27th
HERE Arts Center,145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013
THE OFFICIAL THEATER EVENT OF NEW YORK CITY PRIDE
National Queer Theater’s Obie Award-winning Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF) showcases groundbreaking new works written by artists from countries where queerness is criminalized or censored. At a time when authoritarianism is on the rise globally, CQF elevates refugee, asylee, and immigrant queer voices and enriches the cultural fabric of New York City by introducing audiences to bold, original works that challenge Western norms and inspire global change.
Area D
Written By Lour
Directed By Osh Ashruf
Music Directed by Déa Thatcher
Choreographed by Nikhil Saboo
Wednesday, June 10 @ 9PM (NYC Pride Night)
Thursday, June 11 @ 9PM (OPENING NIGHT + Disco Habibi: Pre Show Mixer)
Friday, June 12 @ 9PM (Immigrant Artists Night)
Saturday, June 13 @ 5PM (Feat. Pre-Show Teach-In on Pinkwashing)
Saturday, June 13 @ 9PM
Runtime: 90 Minutes (No Intermission)
Area D contains haze and flashing lights
Area D completed its run on June 13, 2026.
A Palestinian pop band lands an unexpected shot on the Eurovision stage. What starts as a lucky break for Lara and her feisty bandmates spirals into a glitter-drenched spectacle, forcing them to wrestle with how far they will go to get their voices heard and save one of their own. AREA D is a bold, genre-smashing musical fusing Arab pop and electronic sounds. This workshop presentation of Area D is part of National Queer Theater's 2026 Criminal Queerness Festival.
Community Events for Area D
New York City Pride Night
June 10th | 7:15PM
National Queer Theater is kicking off the Criminal Queerness Festival with our community partner, NYC Pride! The mission of NYC Pride is to work toward a future without discrimination where all people have equal rights under the law. They do this by producing LGBTQIA+ Pride events that inspire, educate, commemorate and celebrate our diverse community. National Queer Theater is proud to be the official theater partner of NYC Pride. Come learn more about volunteer opportunities and events around the city - there will be Pride reps ready to chat! NYC Pride Executive Director, Im Lynd, joins at the top of the night to give a speech about Pride and the Criminal Queerness Festival.
Disco Habibi: Area D Pre-Show Mixer
June 11th | 7:15PM
Need new music for the summer rotation? Say less. Good vibes, food/drinks, and a playlist takeover curated by Area D writer LOUR. Expect the tracks you’ll have on repeat before everyone else does and be ready for the sounds of Area D. Meet us in the HERE Arts Lobby.
Immigrant Artists Night with Artistic Freedom Initiative and NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
June 12th | 7:15PM
Meet reps from NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) and engage with resources from Artistic Freedom Initiative to learn new tools for navigating city, legal, and community resources. Special Guest and Zohran Mamdani appointee, Commissioner Faiza N. Ali joins the night and gives a speech about the mission of MOIA and its support for immigrant artists.
Fuck Pinkwashing: A Teach-In
June 13th | 4:00PM
Join us for a community teach-in exploring pinkwashing in relation to Israel and Palestine. We will examine how LGBTQ+ rights discourse can be used to obscure, justify, or redirect attention from state violence, occupation, and apartheid. Through conversation, historical context, and collective learning, this event will unpack the intersections of queer politics, colonialism, media narratives, and solidarity movements. This will be led by a Member of Writers Against the War on Gaza.
LOUR (she/they) is a Palestinian performer, composer-lyricist, and writer based in New York City. She was named one of Arab America’s “30 Under 30” (2024), and received the Miranda Family Fellowship (2022) and MacDowell Fellowship (2026). Her work has been presented at Ars Nova, The Public Theater, La MaMa, the Dramatists Guild Foundation, the SheNYC Arts Festival, Barzakh, University Settlement, and the Lenfest Center for the Arts, among others.
Osh Ashruf (any pronouns) is a director, Drama League-nominated writer, and Tony Award–winning producer. He recently directed George Abud’s The Ruins: a play through music (The Guthrie Theater) and helmed an immersive presentation, Jake Landau: A Musical Revue, starring Tony Award-winner Maleah Joi Moon. Other directing credits include: 24 Hour Plays (Broadway); The Gaza Monologues (Noor Theatre); Greg T. Nanni’s Love Among Dreamers (The House).
He co-produced A Strange Loop and the 2023 Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along. He is a co-creator of the interactive game-show play American Dreams, and is creative producer of Cesar Alvarez’s musical NOISE (Northern Stage/Dartmouth) and Isabel Monk Cade’s morning-after-pill-retrospective-extravaganza, My Way (PS109). A former Prince Fellow in Creative Producing at Columbia University and Presidential Fellow at Harvard, he holds degrees from Loyola University Chicago and an M.F.A. from Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theater. Ashruf is the founder of Broadway For All (BFA), the national arts training program which received the 2022 Tony Award Honors for Excellence in the Theatre.
Déa Thatcher writes songs in opposition to war, in favor of life. She is a working class Transfemme singer and multi-instrumentalist based in NYC, with performance experience ranging from DIY basement shows to national tours to Broadway. Her band, The Drips, dropped a debut album called Transvolution, in March of 2026, to very little acclaim, and for that she is very proud. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, ASCAP, and AFM Local 802. Graduate of Berklee College of Music.
Nikhil Saboo (Choreographer, he/him) is an Indian-Nepalese actor, creative, filmmaker, and Chita Rivera Award-nominated dancer. He made his Broadway debut in the original cast of Mean Girls: The Musical before joining the Angelica Company of Hamilton. He went on to play Connor Murphy in the national tour of Dear Evan Hansen, becoming the first POC to take on the Tony-nominated role. He extends his deepest gratitude to Osh Ashruf, the entire creative team, and the incredible company of Area D. @nikhil.saboo
The Cast
faggy faafi
Cairo boy
Written By Bazeed
Directed by Shadi Ghaheri
Wednesday, June 17 @ 8:30PM (SWANA Artists Night)
Thursday, June 18 @ 8:30
Saturday, June 20 @ 5PM
Saturday, June 20 @ 8:30PM (Feat. Post-Show Drag Show)
Runtime: 90 Minutes (No Intermission)
faggy faafi Cairo boy completed its run on June 20, 2026.
In the space between living and whatever the hell comes next, between daddy issues and Daddy issues, between the city that never sleeps and the city that never even blinks… Mohammad, the prodigal, closeted son returns to Cairo, and to his father's rapidly failing, irrevocable body. Distanced from his NYC boyfriend, Mohammad reunites with an old Cairo flame who now has a life of his own. And who’s to judge him, besides that angry little angel in the corner of the hospital room?
Community Events for faggy faafi Cairo boy
SWANA Artists Night with Noor Theatre
June 17th | 10:00PM
Join Palestinian playwright/musician LOUR (Area D) and Egyptian playwright Bazeed (faggy faafi Cairo boy) for a live conversation unpacking the writing of their plays, overlaps between them, and the intricacies of creating plays/musicals as SWANA artists in New York City. This conversation will be moderated by Noor Theatre Executive Director Ariana Sarfarazi.
Drag Show with Rify Royalty
June 20th | 10:00PM
We’re closing out faggy faafi Cairo boy with a closing night performance from the legendary drag artist Rify Royalty! Summer Shandys will be flowing as we toast to the artists and creative team.
Bazeed (they/them) an Egyptian immigrant, writer, performance artist, editor, curator, stage actor, and cook living in a rent-stabilized apartment in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres has been published in print and online, and their multi award–winning plays performed in festivals in the United States and abroad.
Shadi Ghaheri (she/her) is a New York City based theatre, opera, and film director whose work spans classical texts, contemporary plays, and interdisciplinary performance. She is a graduate of Yale School of Drama.
Her directing credits include Dido and Aeneas (University of Notre Dame), Tosca and Extinctionist (Heartbeat Opera), Selling Kabul (Signature Theatre), English (Alliance Theatre), Glimpse (Rattlestick Theater), In the Stillness of Night (The Tank), Whispers of the Flesh (Emruz Festival), Sweat (Queens College), Threshold of Brightness (BMP), Lucretia (HERE Arts Center), Untitled (Rattlestick).
She is the co-founder and co-curator of Emruz Festival, a biennial festival of theatre, music, and film by Iranian artists, and later co-curated Immigrant MixFest at Atlantic Theater Company, where her play Tosca Tehran was featured for the first time. Shadi has directed the short films Swimming (2019) and Eros (2020) and performed in Kisses and Bullets (Tribeca Festival). She is currently an Adjunct professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, teaching acting and directing.
The Cast
Syrian Soap
Written by E. Zaalan
Directed by Tallie Medel for Criminal Queerness Festival
Original direction, Codevising & Dramaturgy by Natasha Mercado
Wednesday, June 24 @ 8:30PM
Thursday, June 25 @ 8:30PM (Feat. Pre-Show Clown Workshop)
Friday, June 26 @ 8:30PM (Feat. Post Show Talkback)
Saturday, June 27 @ 4PM
Runtime: 60 Minutes (No Intermission)
Eat, pray, bathe with your ancestors in an intergalactic bathhouse in the afterlife and find out if you are your ancestor’s wildest dreams–or worst nightmare! Receive channeled advice, poetry, and a surprise visit from a traditional Syrian bathroom slipper (which may or may not be a metaphor for life under fascism). Underneath the silliness and suds, Syrian Soap is a love letter to revolution and unlocking joy and self-expression in a world on fire. And a reminder…your healing goes back 7 generations—but so do your fuck-ups!
Community Events for Syrian Soap
A Whiff of Clown: Guided Play and Conversation with Director of Syrian Soap, Tallie Medel
June 25th | 7:15PM
Get weird, playful, and gloriously messy in this introduction to clown with acclaimed performer and Syrian Soap director Tallie Medel. Through guided play, you’ll explore the basics of clowning and discover the fun of being fully ridiculous. There will be opportunities to learn about future clown classes.
Staging Revolution through Comedy
June 26th | 10:00PM
Engage with the Syrian Revolution through a multidisciplinary lens in conversation with Syrian Soap’s E. Zaalan alongside writers Banah El Ghadbanah and Mohja Kahf, bringing together artists and scholars whose work covers artistic practice, literary production, and critical inquiry.
E. Zaalan (they/them) is a Syrian standup, clown, and conflict mediator. They made a promise to the martyrs of the Syrian Revolution that they would use their voice to tell the truth--so they had no choice but to become a comedian. They have studied comedy with the Idiot Workshop, Groundlings, Upright Citizen's Brigade, and iO Theater. Syrian Soap is the winner of the 2026 Hollywood Fringe Scholarship, and Zaalan’s co-created sketch and standup show won “Best of SF Fringe Festival” and “Best Box Office” at San Francisco Fringe Festival 2024.
Tallie Medel (they/them) is an educator, clown, director, and award-winning actor based in New York City. Screen credits include EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (A24) and BROAD CITY (Comedy Central). They founded the ever-popular clown program at Brooklyn Comedy Collective. Tallie has taught at NYU, Harvard University, Emerson College, the School of Visual Arts, and at theaters and schools across the country. Stage time includes Upright Citizens Brigade NY & LA, Second City NY, Caroline's on Broadway, MoMA PS 1, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and London's SoHo Theatre. Tallie has been featured in IndieWire, the LA Times and the Boston Globe.
The Cast
Our Creative Team
Area D
LOUR (Writer, book, music, lyrics)
Osh Ashruf (Director)
Déa Thatcher (Music Director/Keys/Conductor)
Nikhil Saboo (Choreographer)
Jaz Koft (Associate Music Director/Copyist)
Steven Tran (Electronic Music Producer/Synth Programming)
Danielle Breitstein, Alan Mendez, Alex Wakim (Co-Orchestrators)
Jeremy Kadetsky, Lola Basilier (Sound Systems Designer)
Ella Martin (Associate Director)
Fuyuan Zheng (Stage Manager)
Band:
Leo Cohen (Oud/Electric Guitar)
Déa Thatcher (Keys)
Spiff Wiegand, Sarah Klein (Bass)
Ramzi Edlibi (Darbuka)
Kasey Blezinger (Drums)
faggy faafi Cairo boy
Bazeed (Writer)
Shadi Ghaheri (Director)
Dezi Tibbs (Dramaturg)
Nat Kelley DiMario (Stage Manager)
Sean Griffin (Fight/Intimacy Coordinator)
Gavin Strawnato (Video Designer)
Jeremy Kadetsky (Sound Designer)
Lola Basiliere (Assoc. Sound Designer)
Syrian Soap
E. Zaalan (Writer, Performer)
Tallie Medel (Director)
Natasha Mercado (Dramaturg)
Mars Neri (Stage Manager)
Jeremy Kadetsky (Sound Designer)
Lola Basiliere (Assoc. Sound Designer)
All
Dmitri Barcomi (Production Manager)
Forest Entsminger (Props/Scenic Designer)
Maryam Sweirki (Lighting Designer)
Jasmine Canjura (Costume Designer)
Mireya Velasquez (Assistant Costume Designer)
Peter Dunn (Casting)
Our Community Partners
Artistic Freedom Initiative’s mission is to protect, promote, and foster freedom of artistic expression. Our programs are designed to directly assist artists whose freedom of expression has been restricted, support artists who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing positive social change and fundamental human rights, and improve the laws, policies, and systems that shape artists’ lives and work. https://artisticfreedominitiative.org/
The Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) promotes the well-being of immigrant communities in New York City. Among other activities, MOIA works with other City government agencies and community partners to advance language access to information, services, and engagement. MOIA supports, but is not responsible for Citywide service procurement. https://www.nyc.gov/site/immigrants/index.page
Founded in 2010, Noor Theatre is an Obie-winning company dedicated to supporting, developing and producing the work of theater artists of Middle Eastern, Southwest Asian and North African descent. In doing so, we reflect the unique perspectives of our artists, and ensure that our communities are represented and celebrated in the larger theatre ecosystem. To learn more about our work, visit us at noortheatre.org. To receive updates on our work and invitations to our events and performances, please sign up for our e-newsletter at https://www.noortheatre.org/contact.
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NYC Pride is the nonprofit that has produced NYC’s official Pride Month events since 1984, including the NYC Pride March - one of the largest, oldest LGBTQIA+ demonstrations in the world. Additional marquee events include PrideFest, the largest LGBTQ+ street festival in the U.S.; and Youth Pride, an affirming celebration of LGBTQ+ youth, their families and allies. NYC Pride works toward a future without discrimination where all people have equal rights under the law. We do this by producing LGBTQIA+ Pride events that inspire, educate, commemorate, and celebrate our diverse community year-round. https://www.nycpride.org/
National Queer Theater is the official theater partner of NYC Pride. The festival is supported by generous funders, including the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Distracted Globe Foundation. The festival is a co-production with HERE Arts Center