INTERVIEW: Audrey Cook

Live Theatre is a hotbed of new creative talents, and the upcoming Trans Performance Now festival will be a key point for the local theatrical scene in celebrating trans-led UK theatre. The free to attend festival will bring work-in-progress shows to the fore, with representatives from Queer Arts North along with theatre producers and managers on hand to provide support.

The showcase will feature work from a variety of UK talent including Emma Frankland, Ivor MacAskill, Rosana Cade, Tabby Lamb, Bea Webster, Kate O’Donnell, Patti Boo Rae, Laurie Ward, Charli Cowgill and our very own Mack Sproates.

One of the key shows taking place is Payton, by Teesside-based non-binary theatre maker Audrey Cook. “Payton is a Twilight Zone/Amicus Horror-inspired story following a young trans man uncovering the mystery of a supernatural, blood sucking force in his town.” Cook explains. “When he meets a group of underground beings, he questions his place in the world, and discovers some hidden desires that he had been suppressing in order to survive.”

Cook describes it as “my ‘pull yourself out of your comfort zone and try everything you’ve never tried before’ show,” and you can tell that it is a labour of love, having been in the works since the pandemic. The theatre maker’s previous work includes fearless humour and social commentary, including last year’s Bus Stop Goths and theatrical cabaret Ricky The Itch, and taking part in an event like Trans Performance Now will help Cook to develop their ambitions. “If people are buying what I’m selling, and want to talk logistics to put my gothic, sinister, sexy visuals on stage, I’d be over the moon to work with a venue to make that happen. It’s a really liberating creative exercise to make a show dripping with excess, to lay it all bare, and think about the practicalities later.”

It’s a really liberating creative exercise to make a show dripping with excess, to lay it all bare, and think about the practicalities later.

The festival will be a key event for trans creatives, and Cook says: “I think when there is such sparse platforming for trans work, the festival will be a brilliant culmination of the potential and brilliance of trans-led creation.”

Cook explains their own appetite for performance comes from a place of transformation: “It’s very rooted in my trans joy and my favourite avenue for liberation – I think that’s true for a lot of trans performers.” Getting an opportunity to explore their performative and written work, and being able to take risks, can pay huge dividends. “When we want to ground our work in the queer art movement we want to swing big, and we need trust in our ideas and our potential to make that work. We don’t often take the most conventional path to create, and that can scare the people with the power to programme and invest. So trust is huge.”

As the Trans Performance Now festival is an R&D-focused event, Payton will still be a work-in-progress, and Cook has described this as a positive. “The perk of writing a script for the R&D is that it has no real limitation at this stage. I’m just telling a story.”

Cook hopes there’s more to come from initiatives like Trans Performance Now. “We need platforms for trans creatives to make work that excites them. I’m also a huge advocate for more funding for cabaret. Cabaret is an artform with so much history, creativity and safety for queer people! I think it’s the perfect playground for queer artists to make liberated work that liberates its audience.”

Trans Performance Now takes place at Live Theatre, Newcastle from Friday 27^th-Sunday 29^th June.