LGBT History Month 2017: The Burnley Plays

Aim

To recover and celebrate the unique LGBT history of Burnley by creating two plays about seminal political events in 1970s.

Inkbrew Productions have been commissioned by LGBT History Month UK (Schools OUT) to create two new plays for LGBT History Month 2017:

"The Burnley Buggers' Ball" by award-winning playwright Stephen M Hornby tells the story of an amazing meeting held at the Burnley Central Library in 1971.  The events in this meeting sees the birth of the civil rights struggle in the UK as activists from London and the North West join forces publicly for the first time to take on the  establishment.

"Burnley's Lesbian Liberator" by Abi Hynes dramatises the political activism of Mary Winters, a bus drives sacked in 1978 for nothing more than wearing a Lesbian Liberation badge to work.  Unsupported by her union, she fought back using a network of Womens' Groups from across Britain and staged a demo outside the bus station in defiance of how she had been treated.

We have some conditional funding from the Arts Council and some patronage and sponsorship, but we still need to raise a final £350 to help keep performances free to the public and help the whole town celebrate it's history.

This project successfully funded on 16th March 2017