2024 Events
Black and Queer: A writing workshop with Chloe Filani
Thursday 1 February, 5.30pm - 7.30pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
Artist, performer, poet and writer working with and in her lived experiences as a black trans woman of Nigerian Yoruba and Eshan heritage, Chloe Filani examines the themes of identity and power structures.
In this practical workshop, participants will explore their writing practice through sensory interaction and conversations with objects in groups.
You will be encouraged to think and slow down and be present in your body and your surroundings. In a facilitated space you will have the opportunity to create poetry through this process and to read aloud your work.
Chloe will also read poetry from Black, Queer authors to help you explore new poetry of Black origin.
This workshop is FREE for all University of Essex students.
LGBTQ+ History Month Mixer
Friday 2 February, 5pm - 7pm
The Atrium, Colchester
Kick off the month with a Mixer in The Atrium! Grab a free drink and snack, pull up a chair and meet your community!
This event is open to all students as we start to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month! Find out more about all the events we have planned!.
LGBTQIA+ Mixer - Euphoria Theme
Friday 2 February, 7pm - 11pm
Corbett Theatre Bar, Loughton
Live music by SKINT.
LGBTQ+ History Month - Colouring and Crafts
Wednesday 7 February, 11am - 3pm
The Atrium, Colchester
Unleash your creativity and add a splash of colour to your day at our colouring and craft event! Take a break with some mindfulness colouring, relax and express yourself!
Explore your crafty side by making LGBTQ+ themed felt pins! No experience necessary and all materials will be provided.
This event is open to ALL students as we celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month!
CISC Presents: A roundtable on female masculinities
Wednesday 7 February, 4.00pm - 5.30pm
Zoom
A roundtable on female masculinities, with Prof Esther Newton, Dr Libro Levi Bridgeman, Yassine Senghor, Dr Francis Ray-White and Joelle Taylor
This roundtable will bring together a leading group of scholars and writers in the field of female masculinities, who will share their thoughts and reflections on gender identity and queer community.
Drag Scratch Night
Wednesday 7 February, 8.00pm - 10.30pm
Twenty One, Southend
Drag Scratch Night is Back! Please join us for the return of the annual Drag Scratch Night, this year hosted at Twenty One. An essential evening of fun, colour and amazing performances from Essex Students hosted by Dan Memory and Philipa Hepworth.
This is a student only event. Students will need their IDs to enter.
Queer Sip & Paint
Friday 9 February, 7pm - 9pm
Corbett Theatre Bar, Loughton
This event is open to University of Essex students and staff only.
Shar Cooterie: Well Swung
Saturday 10 February, 6pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
Inspired by a failed first gig back when she performed as her out-of-drag self, Shar Cooterie teams with Adam Saiz Abo-Henriksen to tackle a list of queer classics and adapt them to the favoured genre of every shy 00’s young Essex lad who wanted to prove that they had a personality – swing! Book to enjoy an evening of great music, well swung.
We Were Here
Tuesday 13 February, 1.00pm - 2.30pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
An intimate, yet epic history of the AIDS years in San Francisco, as told through the stories of five longtime San Franciscans. The film documents the coming of what was called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed. WE WERE HERE offers a cathartic validation for the generation that suffered through, and responded to, the onset of AIDS. It opens a window of understanding to those who have only the vaguest notions of what transpired in those years and provides insight into what society could, and should, offer its citizens in the way of medical care, social services, and community support.
Swipe, Life and Gate Number 5
Tuesday 13 February - Wednesday 14 February, 6.30pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
Inspired by true events, Swipe, Life and Gate Number 5 is a hilarious lesbian love story between a white and a black immigrant told through an innovative fusion of theatre and film. With only one performer on stage, and everyone else projected on am screen, prepare to fall in love, as the couple begin their extraordinary relatable, almost too good to be true, love story that leads them from a swipe to gate number 5.
LGBTQ+ Market
Wednesday 14 February, 11am - 4pm
Square 3, Colchester
This event is open to University of Essex students and staff only.
Pride Parade
Wednesday 14 February, 1.00pm - 1.30pm
Square 3, Colchester
If you would like to fly a pride flag, please fill out this survey!
This event is open to University of Essex students and staff only.
Valentine's night
Friday 16 February, 7pm - 11pm
At the SU, Loughton
SU Makes: Pride Crafts
Monday 19 February, 6pm - 8pm
SU Lounge, Southend
Come along to our LGBTQIA+ pride themed SU Makes event where you can jump into coaster decorating and bracelet making in a laid-back safe space where all are welcome. Make friends and maybe take something you've made away with you.
Homegrown: Sunrise
Tuesday 20 February - Wednesday 21 February, 6.30pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
A woman cradles a limp coat in her arms. Opens the door. Biblical white light pours out onto her. Then blackness. Then silence.
Engaging with both eco drama and the tragic genre, Sunrise is a story set in post-climate apocalypse Britain.
A woman grieves the loss of both a world she once loved and a girlfriend long dead. Cut off from society, her only companionship is two sock puppets who only seek to further isolate her from reality.
When the far-right government scraps state benefits, she must choose: waste away in a room built on memory, or attempt to find beauty amongst the ashes.
This play subtly reflects many peoples experience of Covid lockdowns, allowing audiences a chance of catharsis.
Set entirely in one room, the set is cramped and cluttered.
With an approximate run time of 45 minutes, Sunrise offers a new take on climate theatre.
Moving away from grand and often anthropocentric plotlines, Sunrise instead highlights the individual experience that does not seek to scare an audience into action, but rather offer a much needed outlet for many peoples increasing climate anxiety.
The Watermelon Woman
Wednesday 21 February, 1.00pm - 2.30pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
This screening is FREE and open to all!
Cheryl Dunye plays a version of herself in this witty, nimble landmark of New Queer Cinema.
A video store clerk and fledgling filmmaker, Cheryl becomes obsessed with the “most beautiful mammy,” a character she sees in a 1930s movie. Determined to find out who the actress she knows only as the “Watermelon Woman” was and make her the subject of a documentary, she starts researching and is bowled over to discover that not only was Fae Richards (Lisa Marie Bronson) a fellow Philadelphian but also a lesbian.
The project is not without drama as Cheryl’s singular focus causes friction between her and her friend Tamara (Valarie Walker) and as she begins to see parallels between Fae’s problematic relationship with a white director and her own budding romance with white Diana (fellow filmmaker Guinevere Turner).
Winner of Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Blind Date with a Queer Book
Wednesday 21 February, 4pm - 5pm
Albert Sloman Library, Colchester
The Library’s popular Blind Date with a Book is back with a Queer twist!
Visit our stand in the Albert Sloman Library, decide which LGBTQ+ book appeals the most (you will only have a short blurb - it is a Blind Date after all!) and it’ll be yours to keep.
Sip and Paint
Thursday 22 February, 5pm - 8pm
The Atrium, Colchester
Come along to The Atrium for a sip and paint party!
Unleash your inner artist, no experience necessary!
Free soft drinks and snacks, so grab a canvas and paintbrush and get involved!
Spit it Out
Friday 23 February, 7pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
Emily is finally ready to come out as a transgender woman. However, she worries that she will be ostracized by relatives and face workplace discrimination. She soon experiences the strain of being openly trans in friendships and relationships, while staying closeted in her profession and to family.
Spit It Out is the new play written by Alice Stephens (Creative Writing PhD candidate, University of Essex) and directed by Noah Alfred Pantano (Standing On A Nail). The play stars trans actress Audrey Thompson as Emily. Joe Eason (Two Come Home), Robyn Faye (Les Enfants Terribles) and Isobel Sheard (The S is Silent) accompany Thompson to play a cascade of characters that complicate Emily’s coming out.
Spit It Out was written as part of Stephens’s M.A. Creative Writing dissertation at the University of Essex. Following a sold-out premiere in Colchester and with two runs upcoming in London and Brighton, Pantano & Co. are excited to bring this play back home to the Lakeside Theatre.
Two Come Home
Friday 1 March, 7pm
Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
Evan Nicolson lives a simple, solitary life post-incarceration in a small Appalachian ex-mining town. The return of both his monstrous father and teenage best friend turns Evan’s lonely life upside down. Guilt, rage, and love collide in this new play with music by Joe Eason (1,000 Suns, Luck of the Draw). Directed by Noah Alfred Pantano (Standing On A Nail).
A small live band perform a score that is both haunting and uplifting as this story of regret and second chances unfolds. We deal with a legion of themes; poverty, addiction, generational trauma, repressed love, etc. but the theme that overrides all of these is the courage it takes to reach for others and break out of the bittersweet comfort of solitude.
This play has a queer creative team and queer characters and while it deals with the harsh realities of being gay in an impoverished rural community, the true defining features of the characters are their guilt, their rage, and their love.
Events running for all of February
LGBTQ+ History Month Displays at all three of our Campuses and reading lists
Browse the library's available books through our dedicated reading list and visit our libraries at Colchester, Southend and Loughton campuses to discover our LGBTQ+ History Month book displays. A Loughton LGBTQ+ reading list tailored to East 15 students is also available.
Displays will be accessible during library opening hours. For campus specific opening hours, please visit the library website.
Lighting up of the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall
In honour of LGBTQ+ History Month the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall will shine bright in an array of colours throughout the month.
Flying the flag over Albert Sloman Library
Look up and you will see the intersex-inclusive redesign of the Progress flag flying above the Albert Sloman Library
Events in Essex and the surrounding areas
Cliffs Pavillion
Fanny Galore's Big Night Out
Friday 16 February, 7pm
Fanny's Bingo Brunch
Sunday 18 February, 11am
Curzon
KALEIDOSCOPE - Colchester LGBTQ+ Project
Thursday 1 February, 7.30pm - 10.00pm
Dice & a Slice
Fun and Gaymes: A Colchester Pride Board Game Social
Wednesday 21 February, 6.30pm - 9.30pm
Essex Working Well
Trans Health Awareness session
Tuesday 13 February, 10am - 11am
Firstsite
Kinky Boots - The Musical
Thursday 1 February, 8pm and Saturday 3 February, 7.30pm
Drag Life Drawing with Sirena Hart
Saturday 3 February, 6pm
Boozy Brushes
Friday 16 February, 7.30pm
Mercury Theatre
Colchester Pride Film Night - Bros
Tuesday 6 February, 8pm
Lates - Cocktail Cabaret
Saturday 24 February, 9.30pm
myGwork
Celebrating LGBTQ+ History
Wednesday 21 February, 4pm
National Student Pride
Friday 23 February - Sunday 25 February
Palace Theatre Southend
Josh Berry: Sexual Politics
Saturday 17 February, 7.30pm
Southend Winter Pride
Saturday 24 February, 12pm - 5pm
The Outhouse
Saturday Social
Saturday 3 February and Saturday 17 February, 10.30am - 1.00pm
Craft with Pride
Tuesday 27 February, 2pm - 4pm
LGBTQ+ Book Club
Thursday 29 February
Three Wise Monkeys
Now! That's What I Call...DRAG
Thursday 8 February
Search for nationwide events
