A converted arts space in an unconsecrated church in Sydney is at the center of a row over free speech between Catholic organizations and LGBTQ+ artists in Australia’s first city.
The diminutive 150-year-old building, in the heart of Sydney’s central business district, hasn’t been a church since the 1930s. It was later turned into a children’s school and a theatre, The Guardian reports.
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Recently, an arts group now calling itself the Divine Playhouse received a $100,000 grant from the New South Wales arts council to create an LGBTQ+ performance space in the venue. Together with Heaps Gay Events, the collection of artists organized a splashy opening for the venue last Wednesday.
The decision was controversial even before the lights went up at the Playhouse’s first show.
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Protest began with the group’s original name for the venue and troupe housed within the former church: Unholy Playhouse. As the troupe’s performance eventually revealed, sacrilege seemed to be in the group’s DNA from the beginning.
The troupe dropped the original name at the last minute after objections: Unholy Playhouse became Divine Playhouse, a double entendre honoring both the space’s original purpose and a drag queen inspiration for the artists performing in it. The new name’s provenance was another clue to the kind of provocative programming the group had in mind.
The Catholic groups were horrified.
Catholic activists cited photos and videos shared from the venue’s opening night, including one of a performer dressed as a pig offering McDonald’s french fries as holy communion; performers dressed as nuns waving sex toys; and drag queens reenacting the birth of Christ.
The group Fit for the Kingdom called the performance “hateful blasphemy that mocks what we hold most sacred.” Another group, Prodigal Sons, underscored “how deeply this material has wounded a community of faith.”
The religious groups vowed to gather at Divine Playhouse last Friday to “join in prayer for the souls of the people behind this desecration.” Though it’s unclear if the troupe was even still in the church to witness it.
The troupe’s landlord issued an order to stop “engaging in offensive trade” or otherwise risk being booted from the building. The notice of breach to the venue’s organizer, Heaps Gay, claims the show “insulted and mocked the sincerely held religious beliefs of millions of Christian Australians” and gave the group two days to cease operation.
Promoter James Thorpe, founder of Odd Culture Group and co-chair of the Night Time Industries Association in Sydney, called the order to cease performing “deeply concerning.”
“Freedom cannot mean the freedom to say what you believe while demanding silence from everyone who disagrees,” Thorpe wrote on social media.
“For generations, queer people have fought for places to gather, perform, be loud, irreverent, joyful and entirely ourselves,” he continued. “Christians have a right to preach, protest and stand outside Divine Playhouse and pray. Queer artists have the right to make art that is confronting, irreverent and, yes, offensive.”
Sydney’s deputy lord mayor, Jess Miller, shared Thorpe’s statement on Instagram, and added, “[I] could not agree more.” At the venue’s opening, Miller celebrated the playhouse as a place for community.
“What happens between us when we come to places like this is we create cathedral communities that are ultimately so much stronger for being together than for being split,” she said.
New South Wales Greens Member of Parliament (MP) Cate Faehrmann said Divine Playhouse should be celebrated as the kind of venue that Sydney “desperately needs more of.” She called on the state minister for music and the night-time economy, John Graham, to “publicly defend Divine Playhouse, its organizers, staff, artists and patrons” in the face of threats from religious extremists and a landlord caving to their demands.
Graham “should make it clear that the government will stand with artists, venue operators and Sydney’s queer community, not with those trying to shut them down,” she said.
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