May Queen returns to Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre this summer

May Queen will return to Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre this summer.

Midlands writer Frankie Meredith’s May Queen, which premiered last summer as part of Paines Plough’s Roundabout Season, will be re-staged in-the-round in B2 from 25 June to 2 July 2022.

Directed by Balisha Karra, one of the Belgrade’s three Co-Artistic Directors for the City of Culture Year, May Queen will see Yasmin Dawes reprise the role of Leigh.

May Day in Coventry, 2022. Sixteen-year-old Leigh has been chosen as May Queen. She’s buzzin’, as is the rest of the city.

The cider is flowing and St George’s flag is flying – but during Cov’s festivities, our Queen is inevitably toppled.

As the year moves on in the City of Peace and Reconciliation, Leigh must face up to the events of that hot May Day, and dig deep within her past and our city’s history to ask – how did she get here? And how does she get out?

For more information and tickets, visit belgrade.co.uk

Balisha Karra said: “I hope for the new iteration of May Queen to continue to shed light on the micro and macro injustices womxn face in society today.

“I have a desire to heal and know May Queen is a story that many, like I, can relate to. I continue to heal from my own lived injustices and I am choosing to do so by sharing a story I feel I can no longer carry on my own. I hope to direct May Queen from a place of honouring and liberation.”

May Queen is presented by the Belgrade Theatre in co-production with Paines Plough, supported by Coventry City of Culture Trust.