Travis Alabanza

Nominated for Community Award at The Stage Awards 2025Five powerful new plays by some of the most exciting artists working in the UK today – created with and for young people. Developed as part of Wonder Fools’ international project Positive Stories for Negative Times, which has engaged over 11,000 young people across 24 countries including the UK, South Africa, India, USA, Canada, Italy and Australia. Co-commissioned by Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theatre,these bold, imaginative plays span a wide range of styles, themes and forms – designed for ages 6–25. They invite young people to explore big ideas, ask urgent questions and take creative risks. This season’s plays are:We Ain't Movin' by Travis AlabanzaAges 12-18Roman Cardboard Swift by Ella HicksonAges 12-25Hold Me Closer Bunny Baxter by James LeyAges 14-25Careful What You Wish For by Hannah LowAges 6-12The Book of Spin by Mammalian Diving ReflexAges 12-25Positive Stories For Negative Times began in response to the loss of creative spaces during the pandemic – offering young people the chance to connect, express themselves and make new work. Now an international programme, it includes hundreds of participating groups around the world, a Youth Board who dramaturg every commissioned play, a CPD programme for leaders, and four youth theatre festivals across Scotland taking place in summer 2025. Supported by Creative Scotland, the Gannochy Trust, Hugh Fraser Foundation, William Syson Foundation, Trades House of Glasgow Commonweal Fund and Gordon Fraser Foundation.

A "humane and heart-rending" memoir exploring what it means to live outside the normative boundaries imposed by society, from an award-winning trans writer and performer (The Guardian). In None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary, Travis Alabanza considers seven phrases people have directed at them throughout their life. These phrases--some deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or violent, some celebratory--have fundamentally shaped Alabanza, both for better and for worse. But these phrases also illuminate broader issues about a world that insists on gender as a fixed identity. Alabanza considers the meaning of gender, and the role it plays in a world that rigidly and aggressively enforces the binary. Drawing from their experiences as racialized queer person, Alabanza deftly interrogates our current frameworks around identity with nuance, openness, and humor. The result is a meditation on doubt and language that turns a mirror back on society, and on ourselves. By heralding transformative futures, None of the Above questions what we think we know--and shares new ways that we might live.

WINNER OF THE JHALAK PRIZE 2023WINNER OF THE SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2023A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2022: POLITICS'No memoir like it' Independent'Travis Alabanza writes with such generosity and ease even the most provocative suggestions start to seem obvious . . . Profound and funny' SHON FAYE'Will challenge, empower and move your soul' Glamour'Lucid and glorious' YRSA DALEY-WARDIn None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them as a Black, mixed race, non-binary person. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary. Through these seven phrases, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, giving us reason to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and then all the legends that have realised gender is a trap – introducing the Sound of the Underground. Out to the electric night, where the base line jumps in the backstreet light and the beat goes round and round. The sound of the underground is the sound of duct tape, lighting cigarettes, jangling tips and a whole lot of chaos. This is not your average night at the theatre. Legends of the London Queer club scene come out from under the gutter to take over the Royal Court Theatre. Expect punk, profanity and a fierce fight about workers’ rights written by Travis Alabanza and co-created and directed by Debbie Hannan. Hold for applause. Bring some change. Tip generously. Travis Alabanza’s first play for the Royal Court spotlights London’s iconic underground club culture and questions what it means to get your money’s worth when it comes to art. This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Royal Court Theatre in January 2023.

A bold play collection representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) experiences, from Black British perspectives, this anthology contains seven radical plays by Black writers that change the face of theatre in Britain. With an international reach connecting Africa, the Caribbean and the Diaspora, these plays address themes including same-sex love, sex, homophobia, apartheid, migration and space travel. The collection captures the historical scope and range of Black British LGBTIQ+ theatre, from the 1980s to 2021. Including a range of forms, from monologue to musicals, realist drama to club-performance, readers will journey through the development of Black Queer theatre in Britain. Through a helpful critical introduction, this book provides important socio-political and historical context, highlighting and illuminating key themes in the plays. Each play is preceded by an intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ piece between two Black British LGBTIQ+ artists and writers who will talk about their own work in relation to the play, looking back at the history and on into the future. Through these rare conversations with highly acclaimed award-winning practitioners, readers will also gain an insight into the theatre industry, funding, producing, venues as well as the politics of identity, the diversity of LGBTIQ+ lives and the richness of Black British cultures.

A bold play collection representing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ+) experiences, from Black British perspectives, this anthology contains seven radical plays by Black writers that change the face of theatre in Britain. With an international reach connecting Africa, the Caribbean and the Diaspora, these plays address themes including same-sex love, sex, homophobia, apartheid, migration and space travel. The collection captures the historical scope and range of Black British LGBTIQ+ theatre, from the 1980s to 2021. Including a range of forms, from monologue to musicals, realist drama to club-performance, readers will journey through the development of Black Queer theatre in Britain. Through a helpful critical introduction, this book provides important socio-political and historical context, highlighting and illuminating key themes in the plays. Each play is preceded by an intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ piece between two Black British LGBTIQ+ artists and writers who will talk about their own work in relation to the play, looking back at the history and on into the future. Through these rare conversations with highly acclaimed award-winning practitioners, readers will also gain an insight into the theatre industry, funding, producing, venues as well as the politics of identity, the diversity of LGBTIQ+ lives and the richness of Black British cultures.

Tate Britain: Look Again: the National Collection of British Art reimagined for today. Gender is a polyphonic portrait of the representation of gender in art, from acclaimed playwright and artist, Travis Alabanza. Gender is performance. Think of the acts of drama that go hand-in-hand with our experience of gender: a man spreading his legs on a tube; a woman showing biceps in a boiler suit saying, ‘We Can Do it!’; a stiletto heel stepping on a briefcase. It seems wherever gender goes, there follows a show of what it might be trying to say. Art is also wrapped up in performance. We see a piece of art as a still of a performance in motion, a moment of drama, a snapshot, a glimpse into a spectacle ­–­ it captures a breath to be immortalised. In this book, celebrated playwright and artist Travis Alabanza offers a revelatory new perspective on the ways that art and gender have interacted through the ages, taking us into the drama that always follows gender, and the drama that always follows art. Through a number of recognisable works from the national collection of art, we discover who is really putting on a show, and what they are trying to tell us.

'Welcome. Welcome to Bristol in 1963. Welcome to Waterloo Bridge in 2016. Welcome to a house in May 2017. Welcome to three couples and what might be, what once was and what could have been in 2017. Welcome to a West Indian household in 2018. Welcome to London in 2018. Welcome to the past, present and – crucially – the future.' This anthology brings together six plays, all written or performed since 2017, by six brilliant Black British writers – Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali, Natasha Gordon, Arinzé Kene, Chinonyerem Odimba and debbie tucker green. The plays demonstrate a rich range of settings, forms, styles, locations, scales, contents and concerns – and explore themes including politics and protest, grief and colonisation, relationships and gender. They have been seen on stages including the National Theatre, the Royal Court, the Bush and Bristol Old Vic, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in the West End, and on tour of the UK. Selected and introduced by leading theatre director Natalie Ibu, Contemporary Plays by Black British Writers celebrates a multiplicity of stories authored by Black playwrights in the UK over the last decade.

Hurled words. Thrown objects. Dodged burgers. A burger was thrown at Travis Alabanza on Waterloo Bridge in 2016. From this experience they have created a poetic, passionate performance piece based around the 'burger': the texture, and taste of being trans. Their experiences include verbal abuse, ostracisation and being thrown out of a Top Shop changing room. The piece also explores the black trans experience.

"Club toilets have taught me more about sisterhood than any book." Cornered into a flooding toilet cubicle and determined not to be rescued again, Rosie distracts herself with memories of bathroom encounters. Drunken heart-to-hearts by dirty sinks, friendships forged in front of crowded mirrors, and hiding together from trouble. But with her panic rising and no help on its way, can she keep her head above water? From internationally acclaimed writer and one of the UK’s most prominent trans voices, Travis Alabanza (Burgerz), comes a hilarious and devastating tour of women’s bathrooms, who is allowed in and who is kept out. This edition was published to coincide with its premiere at the Bush Theatre, London in December 2020. The production was the first play to reopen the theatre following the COVID-19 pandemic.