Multi award-winning theatremaker RashDash is curating the tenth feminist festival, Calm Down, Dear, at Camden People’s Theatre.
The festival runs from 31 May to 17 June and includes Sluts with Consoles and work-in-progress Stable, which look at women in the gaming industry and horse dealing respectively, and a character comedy on fat bodies from Posey Mehta, Babycakes.
Other shows consider modern sex work and growing up having witnessed domestic abuse as a child.
There are two nights of scratch work showcasing a variety of artists testing ideas and forms in front of a live audience.
CPT artistic director Brian Logan said, “it’s such a privilege to have worked with the great RashDash to present this year’s festival of innovative feminist performance, ‘Calm Down, Dear’. Theatre heroes of mine, their work is characterised by integrity, intelligence and brio—and it’s feminist to the hilt. In the guest-curator role, they’ve brought all the enthusiasm, commitment and principle we could have dared to expect.
"It’s a privilege too to launch the tenth edition of this extraordinary event, and by doing so to mark ten tumultuous years of feminist thought, feminist action and feminist theatre-making. We hope this year’s festival, jam-packed with bold young artists, will offer perspective on that journey, and on where the fights against sexism and for gender equality find themselves in.
"We can promise you three weeks of performance that have been lovingly assembled and absolutely teeming with thrills, laughs, new ideas and righteous zeal for social justice.”
The programme for Calm Down, Dear at Camden People’s Theatre, 58–60 Hampstead Road, London from 31 May to 17 June:
- Phoebe Marsh: Wicked Annabella (WIP) — 31 May
- Posey Mehta: Babycakes (WIP) — 31 May
- Helena Araújo: my gentle wild squirts — 1 June
- Beth Crackles: STABLE (WIP) — 2 June
- Katie Paterson: Side FX — 2 June
- Dogmouth Theatre: Sluts With Consoles — 3 June
- Orla O’Sullivan, Honeyjamn, TSarzi, and Maya: Big Bang: Scratch Performance — 5 June
- Raina Greifer: Manic — 6 June
- Maedb Joy: Home Sweet Hell (WIP) — 6 June
- Maria Telnikoff: All The Men Are Going To Hate Me — 7 June
- Laurie Black: Dystopiano — 7 June
- Marisol Spensieri & Héctor Manchego: Our Flesh And… (WIP) — 8 June
- Rrita Pula: The Bystanders — 8 June
- Sarah Malin: Sieves, Virgins, And Murderous Mothers — 8 June
- Ensemble Not Found: Woo Woolf (WIP) — 9 June
- Knickerfit: Nympho — 9 June
- Elina Alminas: Pleasure Little Treasure (WIP) — 10 June
- Kelly Vee: Radical Strength — 10 June
- Rosaleen Cox, Burning Pages Theatre Company, Lucy Haighton: Big Bang: Scratch Performance — 11 June
- Roshi Nasehi: 678 Mystic Nightingales — 14 June
- Pepa Duarte / Francisco Diaz: Senorita Rita’s Drag Show — 13 June
- REVERIE: MILITARIA (WIP) — 15 June
- Catherine Duquette: Mary And Her Monster (WIP) — 15 June
- Christian Neal / BADD Risk; Perpetual (WIP) — 15 June
- Kathrin Wagner: I Was Told. — 16 June
- RooZ Theatre Company / Zoe Sigalou & Roxanne Krimizi: Chromosome W: An Alphabet Of Womankind — 16 June
- Andreea Tudose & iulia isar: Cry for me (WIP) — 17 June
- Jahmila Heath: Man Is Di Feast (WIP) — 17 June