COWBOIS Comes to the Seymour Centre and Siren Theatre Co

Seymour Centre and Siren Theatre Co will present the Australian premiere of Charlie Josephine’s Cowbois, a rollicking queer Western like nothing you’ve seen before at the Seymour Centre’s Reginald Theatre from 20th November.

Directed by Kate Gaul [she/her] (CAMP, Opera Australia’s The Magic Flute), Cowbois features an incredible cast of 16, including a live band and original music and lyrics from Clay Crighton [they/them]. Cowbois weaves together timely ideas about gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class in a “joyously subversive” (Time Out UK) take on the Western genre.  

In a sleepy town in the Wild West, the women drift through days like tumbleweed. Their husbands, swept up in the goldrush, have been missing for a year and show no sign of returning. This lonely town has one drunken sheriff for protection.

Until handsome bandit Jack Cannon swaggers up to the town’s saloon, looking for a place to hide from the bounty hunters on his tail. Armed with a wink and a gun by his side, Jack’s explosive arrival inspires a queer revolution, and starts a fire under the petticoat of every one of the town’s inhabitants.

Siren Theatre Co’s Artistic Director and Cowbois director Kate Gaul said, “Cowbois is entertaining, theatrical, and sometimes just plain silly, but it’s also a provocation. Too often, theatres include productions advertising queer storylines, but these tend to rely on gender bending scenarios with performative gender swaps to balance numbers. While it is important and necessary to give artists opportunities to play roles outside of the gender they identify with, this is not the same as telling the stories of people who are trans, non-binary/queer. Cowbois explores gender expression from the inside.”

This production features a stellar cast including Jules Billington [They/Them] (Siren Theatre Co’s The Past is A Wild Party), Emily Cascarino [She/Her] (Hayes Theatre’s Little Women), Faith Chaza [They/Them] (National Theatre of Parramatta’s Sahra Salon), Branden Christine [She/Her] (Eureka Day), alongside many more. 

“How wonderful to have this play for the Seymour Centre’s 50th birthday celebrations,” says the Seymour Centre’s Acting Artistic Director, Colette Vella. “The Seymour has always been proudly a home for queer audiences and queer storytelling, from Mardi Gras programs over the years to the sell-out, award-winning The Inheritance in 2024. We remain committed to supporting independent theatre, and this last Seymour Season play from our stellar partner, Siren Theatre, promises to end the year with a bang.”

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