Sunday Arts Magazine

30 Jan 2023

Burgerz

Arts, Performing Arts, Sunday Arts Magazine

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Travis Alabanza’s international breakout hit Burgerz will take the stage at Theatre Works this
February, as part of Midsumma Festival. Helmed by the Green Room Award winning team behind
“The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven”, this Australasian premiere will be the first

international production to feature a new performer in the lead role; Melbourne’s most exciting up-
and-coming trans artist Kikki Temple.

Funny, confronting, flirtatious and sometimes a bit messy, Burgerz combines confessional
storytelling, live cooking, and audience interaction to recreate a trans person of colour’s lived
experience. Poignantly unpredictable, Burgerz lifts the lid off gender and race politics by asking us to
reflect on our own complicity. To be unregulated is to be dangerous.
In broad daylight in April 2016 at Flinders Street Station, a burger was thrown at Kikki whilst someone
shouted a transphobic slur. Over one hundred people saw, and no one did anything. To understand
this act of violence, Kikki needs to make a burger – with the help of a stranger. Burgerz is the climax
of their obsession —exploring how trans bodies survive in public spaces and how they can reclaim an
act of violence.
“I remember feeling like this was a story I needed to tell. Like the words have been on my lips the whole
time but I just didn’t know how to get them out. When I read what Travis had written, I felt a sense of
relief knowing someone had articulated what I had been trying to say the whole time.” -Kikki Temple
Carving out a place as one of the UK’s prominent trans voices, Alabanza is an award-winning theatre
maker and trans activist who has opened arena shows for Jonathan van Ness and Alok Vaid-Menon.
Burgerz has played internationally in Sao Paulo, Southbank Centre, Bristol Old Vic, Smock Alley
Dublin, HAU Berlin, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won the Total Theatre award.