In 2016, Travis Alabanza experienced a transphobic attack while walking across London’s Waterloo Bridge when a person threw a burger at them and shouted a transphobic slur. Out of the nearly 100 witnesses to the attack, not one person intervened.  

Since then, Alabanza has become one of the UK’s most well-known transgender activists, boasting over 50 thousand followers on social media platforms. 

After the incident, Alabanza became “obsessed with burgers. How they’re made, how they feel, and sell. How they travel through the air. How the mayonnaise feels on your skin.”

Written and performed by Travis Alabanza and directed by Sam Curtis Lindsay, BURGERZ – the show inspired by the event is now coming to Dublin. The show is “exploring how trans bodies survive and how, by them reclaiming an act of violence, we can address our own complicity.”

Straight from a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, where the play was one of the stand-out shows of the month, BURGERZ will run at the Smock Alley Theatre Main Space from 9-12 October. On October 9 there will be a post-show talk with Alabanza.

The works in this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival “Deal with many contemporary topics but they also reach beyond those, to a poetic enquiry about the times we live in.” Blending humour, heartbreak and ground beef, BURGERZ is a powerful and unsettling reflection. 

The show received 4-star reviews from The Guardian, The Skinny and The Stage. The Guardian recently listed BURGERZ as one of the 15 best Edinburgh shows now touring. Well-known theatre critic Lyn Gardner described it as “A terrific, tricky and layered show”. 

The show was developed in association with Ovalhouse and Marlborough Theatre and supported by Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund and Bishopsgate Institute.

The show is suitable for those aged 14+. Tickets for BURGERZ can be found here.