Atlanta theater festival celebrates Southern LGBTQ+ stories and voices

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(Courtesy of Sydney Lee/Lavender Fest)

ATLANTA - Pride Month may be over, but a special festival is bringing a series of performances that celebrate LGBTQIA+ voices from across the South and beyond to Atlanta.

Lavender Fest is hosting performances from July 16 to 20 at multiple venues across the city.

What we know:

Playwright and actor Ty Autry told FOX 5 he was inspired by the explosion of experiences revolving around theater and fringe festivals and realized that Atlanta was missing a queer performing arts festival.

"It became a no-brainer when I said, ‘Well, we should start our own festival and give a space for young emerging artists,’" Autry said.

The first Lavender Fest took place in 2024 with hundreds of people going out to see the 10 shows. This year, performances range from single-performer shows to late-night cabaret acts and drag bingo.

Autry said the focus of the festival is to showcase stories specifically about the South, though the writer doesn't have to be living in the area around Georgia.

"Every story is actually Southern-based - even the two stories coming down from Los Angeles and New York - both are set in the South, and they have the experience growing up in the South as well."

(Courtesy of Sydney Lee/Lavender Fest)

Shows range from "Yesterday is Dead," a one-woman show based on a manuscript found at the University of Georgia connecting queer narratives of the past with the Gen Z playwright's life in the present, to "Bottle of Soup," a multi-person show dealing with the negotiation of romance and alcoholism and letting go.

Dig deeper:

For Autry, there was no better place to hold the festival than Atlanta. 

"Atlanta has been the epicenter of queer activism and queer movement in the South for decades now. We have a long history of activism happening here. Organizations across the board are working around the clock to make Atlanta and Georgia a safe haven for queer artists and queer people in general, in the South," they said. "We're deeply situated in entrusting ideologies, but we're also a beacon of hope and progress, especially from queer narratives, from politics to art to science to the whole gamut. Like, you name it, there's queer people in every aspect of the population here in Atlanta."

And the playwright said that Lavender Fest gives an opportunity to local playwrights that they may not usually get.

"It's one of the few venues that artists actually get to put their work on stage rather than just being in a reading or in a workshop cycle," he said. "This is something Atlanta is missing to help cultivate these artists and give them a chance to play and experiment. And so I think that's actually where Lavender Fest falls into developing even further Atlanta's infrastructure for theatrical works."

What you can do:

While the topics of the plays and performances may be rooted in the Southern LGBTQIA experience, Autry said that anyone with an open mind will find something to enjoy during the festival.

"This festival is for everyone. It's for our allies, it's for questioning, it's for people who don't understand the entire queer alphabet. We welcome everyone into this space to come experience stories that maybe are outside their worldview," they said. "And I think that the success of what we want to create here not only relies on queer people across the entire spectrum showing up and supporting new work like this, it also takes a large chunk of our allies and straight population to come and see this work and just experience a new story and find love and romance and comedy and joy in what we're trying to do here, right?"

"That's what I really want to leave people with. Come see one show. It's an hour of your time. It's $15, super easy," Autry continued. "The entry is very low, so why not?"

Tickets for Lavender Fest are on sale now here. The festival will host an opening party at the Atlanta Eagle on July 16.