Curating Cabaret in the Sam Wannamaker Playhouse

Creating our production of As You Like It has thrown up lots of questions and discoveries around ‘'cross-dressing”, clothing and perception, on top of which both the leads, Nina Bowers and I, are both drag artists. So we decided to put together a night exploring the history of gender in performance, and the Globe has bravely given us the candle-lit Sam Wannamaker Playhouse to do it in!

On 6 October, If It Please You brings a night of glam, drag and high camp by candlelight (inspired by Shakespeare) in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Starring in As You Like It as Orlando and Rosalind this summer, Isabel Adomakoh Young (founding member of Pecs Drag Kings), and Nina Bowers (actor, theatre maker and drag king) curate queer cabaret and conversation paying homage to the performance of gender that began on the Shakespearean stage, celebrating an artform whose roots go back centuries.

Guests include Seayoncé the legendary spirit-whisperer and Loose Willis as Shakesqueer himself, as well as velvet-voiced decoloniser Beau Jangles.