Identity and narrative ownership in "Black Nerd" and "Wicket: A Parody Musical"

Abstract

While theatre and popular media alike tend to almost exclusively favor the white, heteronormative, male perspective, much of fandom culture has developed around geek fans' ability to read alternative, and often resistant, meanings into established texts, then transform them into performances that strive to correct the flaws and fill the gaps in the source text. Analysis of Dad's Garage Theatre Company's productions of Jon Carr's Black Nerd (2018) and Travis Sharp and Haddon Kime's Wicket: A Parody Musical (2017) as case studies reveals that geek theatre uses fandom techniques of resistant reading, rewriting, and performance to disrupt and restructure hegemonic narratives to foreground the experiences and perspectives of minorities whose stories frequently fall through the gaps of the established canon.