National Queer Theater

Thanks to you, we were able to recoup the revoked NEA funding and present a successful Criminal Queerness Festival! If you'd like to stay in touch and keep supporting radical queer art, you can subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram, or donate.

Support the 7th Annual Criminal Queerness Festival

On May 2, 2025, the National Endowment for the Arts revoked $20,000 in awarded funding for National Queer Theater's Obie Award-winning Criminal Queerness Festival, which features new work by playwrights from countries that criminalize or censor queerness. This comes after the NEA's ban on funding queer and trans art - AKA ‘promoting gender ideology.’

But we will not be silenced. Donate so we can still support the more than 50 LGBTQ+ artists participating in the seventh annual Criminal Queerness Festival in June 2025 at HERE Arts in New York City.

The Full Story

In December 2024, National Queer Theater was offered a $20,000 grant award from the NEA for our June 2025 Criminal Queerness Festival. This Obie Award-winning festival supports playwrights from countries that censor or criminalize queerness. In 2025, we are presenting plays about Cuba, Uganda, and Indonesia. Learn more about the festival here.

This NEA grant award was 20% of our festival budget, and it would have been our third year of NEA funding - it’s a big deal for a small company like ours! We don’t have an endowment or a physical building - all our work is done in collaboration with partners.

In March 2025, we teamed up with Theatre Communications Group, The Theatre Offensive, and Rhode Island Latino Arts, represented by the ACLU, to file a lawsuit against the NEA for their ban on grants ‘promoting gender ideology.’ We argue that the NEA’s new guidelines violate our First Amendment rights. Artists’ freedom of speech and expression are key to a democratic society.

On May 2, the NEA withdrew and canceled grant offers to arts organizations around the country, including our confirmed $20,000 award to support the seventh annual Criminal Queerness Festival. The NEA censored the anti-censorship festival.

We will not back down from telling queer and trans stories. We are turning to our community to come together and ensure we can pay our artists and present this vital festival. Your donation will:

Say No to censorship, and Yes to queer joy and truth-telling.

"As an immigrant myself who left a nation where the right to express your true self came at great risk, it has been fulfilling to participate in projects where playwrights from countries like mine can come and share their creative works and truths. This is thanks to NQT where lives are being changed, art is actualised and new experiences are born for an audience that comes to be a part of an unearthing." - Shiro Kihagi, Criminal Queerness Festival Actor

Every little bit helps. You can support by donating to this campaign, sharing it with your community, or, if you’re in New York, buying tickets to the festival.

Learn more about National Queer Theater at www.nationalqueertheater.org, or follow us @nationalqueertheater.