Orlando: A Pornobiography – Research Events, Theatre-Making Masterclasses, and a New Performance from piss / CARNATION (52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals and Ugly Sisters)
With the support of the Judith E Wilson Fund, the multi-award-winning trans theatre collective piss/CARNATION (52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals and Ugly Sisters) are returning to Cambridge to develop their new show, Orlando: A Pornobiography – a raucous reimagining of Woolf’s novel from a trans-femme perspective, that uses live cinema and augmented reality techniques to explore the mediation of the trans-feminine body on stage, on screen, and online.
As part of their residency, Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward will be participating in a series of in-conversation events with leading academics on topics including trans feminism, trans pornography, and the adaptation process, and hosting a series of practical masterclasses on trans theatre and performance-making. These events will be organized and facilitated by Dr Lloyd Meadhbh Houston, who will be serving as a dramaturg and academic consultant on the show.
These events are intended to be informative, accessible, and informal, and are open to the public, with members of the local trans and queer community particularly welcome to attend.
Key Dates (see below for full details)
Session One (Friday 2 May)
In-Conversation: “Orlando’s Afterlives: Adapting Woolf” – Dr Jane Goldman (University of Glasgow).
Masterclass: “Identifying Your Creative Practice”
Session Two (Friday 9 May)
In-Conversation: “Transing Performance: Staging Transfeminine Embodiment” – Dr Rachel Hann (Northumbria University).
Masterclass: “Queering Performance, Transing Performance”
Session Three (Friday 16 May)
In-Conversation: “Mediating Transfeminine Embodiment: Trans Pornography” – Dr Sophie Pezzutto (Australian National University).
Masterclass: “Embodiment, Provocation, and Performing Sensitive Material”
Session Four (Friday 23 May)
Workshop: “Queering Realities: Augmented Reality, Live Cinema, and Digital Transfemininity” – a practical digital humanities workshop facilitated by Dr Eleanor Dare (University of Cambridge).
Work-in-Progress Sharing: Orlando: A Pornobiography and post-show roundtable.
Orlando: A Pornobiography – Work-in-Progress Sharing (23 May, 7pm – 9pm), Judith E Wilson Studio
Many people, taking this into account, and holding that such a change of sex is against nature, have been at great pains to prove (1) that Orlando had always been a woman, (2) that Orlando is at this moment a man.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, Orlando (1928)
With the recent exception of Paul B. Preciado’s Orlando: My Political Biography (2023), stage and screen adaptations of Orlando have consistently cast cisgender women or assigned-female-at-birth performers to play the eponymous role: Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter’s 1992 film, Jenny König in Katie Mitchell’s 2019 Schaubühne production, or Emma Corrin in Neil Barrett’s stage version at the Garrick in 2022. This project takes its ethical and creative impetus from the conviction that, in choosing to cast AFAB actors, even non-binary performers like Corrin, these productions have defanged Woolf’s Orlando and its radical trans potential. By presenting audiences with an AFAB actor effectively playing a male Orlando as drag in the opening phases of the narrative, Orlando’s change of sex is staged not as a transformation; but as a restoration of sex – not a transition away from assigned-at-birth masculinity, but a return to (an implicitly cisgender) femininity. What is left unaddressed as a result is the question of what it means to live as a body that has materially transformed from one sex to another: that has – in the most literal sense of the word – been made transsexual. This project aspires to move beyond these existing interpretive paradigms for adapting Orlando, to ask how Woolf’s text might be made transsexual in performance, by reading Orlando through the phenomenological, aesthetic, and formal lens of trans-femininity.
Rooted in practices of trans autoethnography and combining elements of live cinema and augmented reality, Orlando: A Pornobiography takes Woolf’s text as a starting-point to explore how the trans femme body is mediated on stage, on screen, and online – particularly in online pornography – to produce an adaptation as raucous, radical, and unapologetic as its source material.
This is Orlando by and for the dolls.
Orlando: A Pornobiography is the latest offering from multi-award-winning company piss / CARNATION, following the critically acclaimed 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals (**** The Guardian, ***** To Do List – ‘genuinely groundbreaking’) and Ugly Sisters (**** The Guardian, ***** ThreeWeeks – ‘an incredibly important piece of theatre’).
Trans Feminism and Performance Research Events
As part of the research and development process for Orlando: A Pornobiography, piss / CARNATION will take part in a series of ‘in-conversation’ seminars centred around transfemininity, the mediation of trans bodies on stage and screen, and the experience of adapting Woolf’s novel from a materialist transfeminist perspective. These conversations, chaired by Dr Lloyd Meadhbh Houston, will be conducted with international experts in Woolf studies, trans performance studies, trans pornography, and the digital humanities, and will culminate in a practical workshop on queering augmented reality.
These discussions will be of particular interest to faculty members, ECRs, PGRs, and undergraduates working on topics in gender and sexuality studies, modern and contemporary literary studies, and performance studies.
Session One (2 May, 5pm – 6.30pm) – Faculty of English GR06/07
“Adapting Orlando: Woolf’s Text and Its Afterlives” – Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward in conversation with Dr Jane Goldman (University of Glasgow).
Session Two (9 May, 5pm – 6.30pm) – Faculty of English GR06/07
“Transing Performance: Staging Transfeminine Embodiment” – Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward in conversation with Dr Rachel Hann (Northumbria University).
Session Three (16 May, 5pm – 6.30pm) – Faculty of English GR06/07
“Mediating Transfeminine Embodiment: Trans Pornography” – Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward in conversation with Dr Sophie Pezzutto (Australian National University).
Session Four (23 May, 2pm – 5pm) – Faculty of English GR06/07
“Queering Realities: Augmented Reality, Live Cinema, and Digital Transfemininity” – a practical digital humanities workshop facilitated by Dr Eleanor Dare (University of Cambridge), in collaboration with Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward.
Trans Theatre-Making and Performance Masterclasses with piss / CARNATION
In tandem with these in-conversation events, piss / CARNATION will facilitate a series of practical masterclasses on trans theatre-making and performance, intended to equip participants to create, rehearse, and perform new work in queer and experimental ways.
These hands-on, skill-building masterclasses will be of particular interest to students and members of the local community who are eager to learn how to devise and develop new creative work, explore embodiment on-stage and on-screen, and engage safely and sensitively with challenging topics, in conversation with a pair of field-leading industry professionals.
Participants of all backgrounds and levels of experience are welcome.
The masterclass series will culminate with a work-in-progress sharing of Orlando: A Pornobiography, followed by a post-show roundtable and discussion featuring the piss / CARNATION team and a panel of invited trans scholars, artists, and organizers.
Session One (2 May, 7pm – 9pm) – Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English
“Identifying Your Creative Practice”
Session Two (9 May, 7pm – 9pm) – Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English
“Queering Performance, Transing Performance”
Session Three (16 May, 7pm – 9pm) – Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English
“Embodiment, Provocation, and Performing Sensitive Material”
Session Four (23 May, 7pm – 9pm) – Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, Faculty of English
Orlando: A Pornobiography – Work-in-Progress Sharing and Post-Show Roundtable
