Sir Ian McKellen will open Shakespeare play with trans and nonbinary cast
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Sir Ian McKellen (known as Gandalf) will open a historic production of Twelfth Night, featuring an all-trans and non-binary cast. The one-night-only rehearsed reading, staged by the theatre group...

Sir Ian McKellen (known as Gandalf) will open a historic production of Twelfth Night, featuring an all-trans and non-binary cast.

The one-night-only rehearsed reading, staged by the theatre group Trans What You Will, will take place at The Space Theatre in London on July 25, 2025, and will be livestreamed globally. All profits will go to the UK-based trans charity Not A Phase.

The production reimagines Shakespeare’s gender-fluid classic through a trans lens, emphasizing themes of mistaken identity, cross-dressing, and shifting gender roles.

Director Phoebe Kemp describes the reading as an act of joy, solidarity, and protest, celebrating trans and non-binary artists at a time when trans representation is under threat.

‘Twelfth Night already toys with gender and performance—it feels like Shakespeare wrote it for us,’ they tell Metro.

The event is scheduled ahead of London Trans+ Pride.

  • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    12 days ago

    McKellen came out as gay in 1988, and has since championed LGBT social movements worldwide. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in October 2014. McKellen is a cofounder of Stonewall, an LGBT rights lobby group in the United Kingdom, named after the Stonewall riots. He is also patron of LGBT History Month, Pride London, Oxford Pride, GayGlos, LGBT Foundation and FFLAG.

    I’m willing to call him the one good Brit