Oxford Playhouse is delighted to present a special programme of work in the Burton Taylor Studio this Pride Month. It will showcase new voices in queer performance alongside work by defining LGBTQ+ artists. The programme runs from Tuesday 23 to Friday 26 June.

At the heart of the programme is a Queer Scratch Night, produced in-house by The Playhouse team. This is the third event of its kind at the venue, spotlighting emerging queer artists and supporting them in the development of their work-in-progress plays.

The event will feature a devised piece titled The Open Book Project by James Robertson. Created with Transit Productions, the play is based on the censored Hungarian children’s book A Fairytale for Everyone. Blending the worlds of reality and fairytale, it explores censorship under a totalitarian regime and the conflict between conformity and queer identity.

Stand-up comedian Mark Daniels also joins the line-up with a ridiculous dark comedy, A Man Proposes To A Balloon, Or Possibly Something Worse. As Mikey prepares to propose to his partner, he begins to practice his speech on a balloon. That is until the balloon starts talking back, opening him up to honest conversations about love, loneliness and his city.

Jordana Belaiche transports you to Flippitt’s Dastardly Boarding School for Badly Behaved Boys in Little Lord Fondleroy: Amos, Amas, Amat & All That!. With themes of heartbreak, homoerotic hijinks, and imperial intrigue, Fondleroy’s forbidden desires flourish amidst a sadistic culture of cruelty cultivated by prefects and masters alike. But can he retain his innocent charm?

Carla Rudgyard brings a poignant play to the studio that explores friendship, dating, and women’s safety in Yaz and Rosy. It follows a novelist as she grapples with the disappearance of her best friend and flatmate, intertwining the realities of fiction with the mysterious vanishment.

Queer Scratch Night is produced by Leah O’Grady for Oxford Playhouse. Looking ahead to the event this June, she said:

“We are so excited to be bringing our Queer Scratch Night back for the third year running, after two sold-out performances in 2024 and 2025. The four pieces we are showcasing this year ask interesting questions, interrogating queerness, and play with form in very exciting ways. We are looking for audiences to contribute to these pieces’ development through feedback, and hope that this year will be the most fruitful yet!”

Also coming to the Burton Taylor Studio this June is a solo poetry show from P Burton-Morgan and a verbatim theatre piece from Alexis Gregory.

P Burton-Morgan returns to the studio with Running Commentary, after their last appearance in Oxford with Explaining Being Pan to Nan. This silly, sexy, and sweaty romp follows 41-year-old P, who finds themselves newly single and hungry to get fit. Cue the Rocky montage, witty wordplay and open-hearted tenderness. A graduate of the University of Oxford, P is now Artistic Director of Metta Theatre.

RIOT ACT 2 will be presented by HIV and AIDS charity Mulwade Foundation and is a follow up piece of the widely acclaimed queer solo show RIOT ACT, which has played in the West End and the UK on four national tours. This staged reading is created and performed by Alexis Gregory and directed by Rikki-Beadle Blair. The three brand new monologues that form RIOT ACT 2 feature Dr Joseph Sonnabend - one of the first people to ‘discover’ the AIDS virus, 76-year-old Jonathan Blake - one of the first people diagnosed in the UK, and Ignacio Labayen De Inza, whose work supports community members affected by chemsex.

Off-stage, Oxford Playhouse is once again delighted to be a proud sponsor of Oxford Pride. The venue’s team is thrilled to celebrate alongside the organisation and other city partners on Pride Day which takes place on Saturday 6 June in the city centre.

Oxford Pride is a registered charity run by volunteers - to ensure that their events remain accessible for everyone and continue each year, please consider donating to Oxford Pride via their website.