The Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF) is an Obie Award-winning annual event produced by National Queer Theater that showcases the works of international LGBTQ+ playwrights from countries where queer identities are criminalized or censored. Since its inception in 2019 during WorldPride, CQF has provided a vital platform for these artists to share their stories, fostering global awareness and solidarity.
The 2025 Criminal Queerness Festival includes:
Tomorrow Never Came
By Jedidiah Mugarura
Directed by Ogemdi Ude
Set in 1987 Uganda, Tomorrow Never Came follows Lawrence Muhumuza, a war hero struggling with the personal cost of the liberation he fought for. Torn between duty, desire and the life he is expected to lead, Lawrence is caught in a web of political tension, secrecy and forbidden love. As he prepares to leave his wife, Rhoda, for his lover, Sam, the weight of his choices collides with a nation still healing from war and betrayal. In a world where survival often means silence, Lawrence must confront the impossible question—can one truly be free if they are forced to live a lie? Through a gripping and emotionally-charged narrative, Tomorrow Never Came explores themes of love, power and the sacrifices made in the name of liberation.
What You Are To Me
By Dena Igusti
Directed by Keng S. Meateanuwat
1994, Jakarta Indonesia. Sari is an aspiring singer hoping to achieve her dreams of stardom through table performances at her best friend’s lesbian discoteque nights. One of her song numbers leads to a chance encounter with Lisa, a determined journalist. But when Sari is forced to flee from the aftereffects of Suharto’s US-backed dictatorship and marry a family friend in Queens, the two must end their relationship to conform to the pressures of survival and migration. Years later, their love story is discovered by an emerging zine translator in Queens, who attempts to trace their current whereabouts. Utilizing excerpts of interviews with two generations of Indonesian lesbians affected by the 1998 Jakarta Riots, What You Are To Me is a look at the long-censored Indonesian lesbian zine movement, generational differences on what it means to be out and what it means to love when everything else gets in the way.
frikiNATION
By Krystal Ortiz
Music and Lyrics by EsKoria
Directed by Rula A. Muñoz
Music Direction by Alan Mendez
frikiNation is a historical, bilingual, Cuban punk rock jukebox musical that tells the true story of young punks in Cuba in the early 1990s who took extreme measures to rig the communist system in their favor. In an attempt to access a higher quality of life within the government sanctioned HIV sanitariums, punks across the island started injecting themselves with HIV-positive blood. Using a 2003 album by Cuban punk band EsKoria, frikiNation tells this powerful history by following a pregnant rebel, her new skeptical lover and a band of misfit friends as they fight to survive and create music in a society that pushes them to the margins. With the help of Maria, a cultural programs director determined to educate and protect them, they navigate love, freedom and a dangerous plan to secure a better life—no matter the cost.
