Art Illustration By Raisa Monroe-Yavneh.
CRIMINAL QUEERNESS FESTIVAL 2026
June 9th - 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
June 9th - 13th
A scrappy Palestinian band lands an unexpected shot on the Eurovision stage. What starts as a lucky break spirals into a glitter-drenched spectacle, forcing the band to wrestle with whether visibility is worth compromising their identity. AREA D is a bold, genre-smashing musical fusing Arab-pop, punk, and electronic sounds.
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.
faggy faafi Cairo boy
Written By Bazeed | Directed by Shadi Ghaheri
June 17th - 20th
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?
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.
Syrian Soap
Written by E. Zaalan | Directed by Tallie Medel for Criminal Queerness Festival
Original direction & Dramaturgy by Natasha Mercado
June 24 - June 27th
Eat, Pray, Bathe with your exasperated ancestors in an intergalactic bathhouse and ponder: What kind of future ancestor do I wish to become? How far am I willing to go to express my authentic self? How much lotion is it acceptable to put on in front of other people? Full of heart and irreverence, Syrian Soap is part clown show, part stand-up, part fever dream.
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.
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 the JKW Foundation. The festival is a co-production with HERE Arts Center