Naked Men Talking: Andrew Keates
Nurturing LGBTQ talent and helping to tell the stories of our community.
For our podcast, Naked Men Talking, we caught up with Andrew Keates - the man behind London's Queer Theatre company.
In the conversation, we talk addiction, drama, and the power of connection.
Why was an LGBTQI+ theatre production company something that you wanted to found and start?
As my career progressed as a theatre director, drugs, alcohol and really dangerous sexual situations became commonplace for me.
I really believed that the more successful I would become - the more jobs that I would have, the more famous people that would share my bed - I really believed that that would bring me happiness.
I got to the top of my own little mountain of success and looked around and there was no one there to love me. But what I did have was a profound string of terrible relationships, cocaine addiction, crystal meth addiction, GHB addiction, sex addiction, alcoholism.
It culminated one terrible, terrible day when I woke up in a shed at the bottom of a garden. Two guys had raped me over the course of a couple of days. I was covered in burns and cuts and scars. I was on the verge of a heart attack. I can tell you, when everything is getting dark, and you can feel the pain in your chest and you're about to die, the thought that you have is, I don't want to leave all this behind. I phone an ambulance and they got me to St George's Hospital.
Why did I need to build a theatre company? It's because I was so profoundly lonely. I was only ever comfortable when I was with queer people, telling queer stories, maskless and being my authentic self.
After a year of recovery - getting clean and sober - I learned how I could be properly helpful for people in my community, for all the kids like me who came out of horrendous drama schools.
I have no shame in saying that I'm a gay man with HIV. I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. I've chosen to do the most loving thing by asking for help and reaching out and ensuring that I'm never alone - it's when I'm alone that there is a voice in my head that says it's all better off without you, nobody likes you. The only way to deal with that voice in my head is to spend time with people. That's why I built Queer Theatre.
You touched on your drama school experiences - about how they were difficult. How did your time in drama school intersect with your sexuality and experiences as a gay man?
Throughout a lot of my training, I kept encountering gay men that wanted to do horrendous things to me as a vulnerable queer person. Powerful people in some brilliant drama schools who either psychologically or sexually assaulted me.
I felt like I just had to please everybody to survive, and I was being told that being gay would be unhelpful if I wanted a career in theatre.
I've now built the thing that I would have loved the most as a young gay kid - a place that I could be safe. A place that I wouldn't be belittled or embarrassed in front of my classmates. A place where I didn't have to fix a mask on before I walked through a drama school door to be the acceptable version of a gay guy . A place where real queer connections can be built.
I learned growing up that gay men either died of AIDS, we killed ourselves, or we were addicts. That was at a time - under Section 28 - when I had different rights to all of the other kids in my school. I was put in intensive care after a really brutal attack when I was at school. I know fear - I know what it's like to be frightened. I guess in my own kind of way, I'm just trying to keep everybody safe.
What's the vision for Queer Theatre?
I respond to what needs to be done, and that comes from paying attention to the needs of my community.
Queer Theatre started with acting classes on a Monday night at the Two Brewers in Clapham. That let to a Queer Play Reading Club, and the Outcast Showcase - a showcase of queer actors and queer writers.
I want to create a youth academy - I'm very aware that I'm serving 18-plus queer people. I would love to create the Queer Theatre Youth Academy.
I used to think that being queer was about doing what I wanted, and it isn't. It's about being loving to myself and to others.
Queer Theatre Events
20 April: Acting Classes
