No Easter Sunday For Queers is an award-winning play by poet, playwright and theatre director Koleka Putuma. It will make its debut at the Market Theatre today and will run until Sunday. It aims to raise awareness about hate crimes such as the murders of queer people, specifically lesbians.
The play features a cast of well-known performers such as Lunga Radebe, MoMo Matsunyane, Tshego Khutsoane, Khanyisile Ngwabe and Tumeka Matintela, as well as a 20-member choir. It is a continuation and adaptation of a poem by the same name published in Collective Amnesia, an award-winning 2017 collection of poems by Koleka.
The piece explores the relationship between Napo, her father Pastor Nkosi and her lover Mimi. At the beginning of the play, the two lovers are dead but they return through the subconscious of the father. Their return is on the anniversary of their death, which coincides with Easter Sunday. The lovers come back to recount their death in their own words and to insist that the church and Napo’s father never forget how and why they died.
The script was first developed two years ago under the CASA Award, organised by the Playwrights Guild of Canada Women’s Caucus and the African Women Playwrights Network. It was written under the mentorship of Canadian playwright Diane Flacks and Joburg-based Zambian theatremaker Mwenya Kabwe, who is also the current director of the play. It recently won the 2019 Distell Playwriting Award. )
Tickets for the show, which starts at 8.15pm today and tomorrow, 3.15pm on Sunday, are available at Webtickets from R90 to R150 and students pay R70
