Queer Rural Connections Play

The Stars are Brighter Here

Original play, written and directed by Timothy Allsop.

The Stars Are Brighter Here was about creating a piece which would help to foster a sense of place and connection for queer people in rural areas, while also showing a wider audience how the rural space has always been queer. I brought together many of the oral testimonies with findings from historical research (with the help of a number of archives and local history projects) to create a site-specific promenade piece which toured several museums. At the MERL and the Museum of East Anglian Life, audiences followed two actors, who embodied eighteen characters between them, through the galleries and gardens. From nineteenth century archaeologists to Betty’s nightclub, this play wanted to encourage queer people to access their local heritage spaces and to feel that their story was visible. 

The play’s richness was helped by the work of Pride in Suffolk’s Past and SupportU’s heritage projects.