Casa Valentina announces Stonewall gala

It has been announced that Casa Valentina will play a special gala performance for Stonewall which campaigns for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people across Britain.

The gala, which takes place at the Southwark Playhouse on 24th September, will be hosted by Smooth Radio's Anthony Davis. After the performance, there will be a Q&A with Ayaz Manj and Peter Mercer from Stonewall along with the cast and producers. 

Casa Valentina is set in 1962 in the picturesque Catskills mountains of New York where a group of heterosexual men escape from the City to spend their weekend dressed as women. Included in the price of each ticket to the gala performance will be a donation to support the charitable works of Stonewall.

Feature: The Pride’s Stonewall Gala provides refreshing, thought provoking evening

Despite having heard incredible things about Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Pride, as I took my seat for the preshow discussion on the evening of the Stonewall Gala, I had yet to actually see the play. About a complex love triangle, The Pride delves into the attitudes towards homosexuality in both 1958 and the present day. The play is in the middle of its run at Trafalgar Studios as part of Jamie Lloyd’s season Trafalgar Transformed which has so far also seen critically acclaimed productions of Macbeth and The Hothouse. If the talk made anything instantly clear, it was that The Pride is a piece to which there is a great deal of passion and meaning attached.

The Pride's cast and creative team during rehearsals

The panel for the discussion was made up of Alexi Kaye-Campbell (playwright), Will Young, Layton Williams and comedienne Suzi Ruffell. The main angle of the discussion was directed towards how homophobic bullying could be tackled within our schools. Each guest was given the opportunity to share their own, often moving stories which brought a lovely touch of sentimentality and reality to the event.