Towards a queer theatre for very young audiences in Scotland and the United States

Abstract

Queer performance practice and production has emerged over the past four decades as an increasingly visible if contentious modality, particularly in relation to theatre for children and teenagers. Kathryn Bond Stockton and Matthew Reason’s respective theories of the queer child and the impossibility of theatre for young audiences underpin arguments for the importance of queer themes within performance for young people. This paper looks specifically at Catherine Wheels Theatre Company’s production of White (2010) where colour invades a completely white world in a metaphor for diversity, and Emily Freeman’s play And Then Came Tango (2012) for elementary school audiences about a controversial same-sex penguin couple at New York’s Central Park Zoo. It is proposed that these plays may serve as examples of queer theatre pioneering progressive narratives specifically for young people. By contrasting the cultural contexts in which these plays have been performed, this paper contends that queer themes must be effectively depicted in cultural content for young people in order to destabilise global stigmas of LGBTQ+ people.