In the organizer's words:

Four women*, a girl band and a broken-down tour bus in the desert: I wanna be a Gurrrlband tells the story of a casting band whose shiny pop façade shatters in the heat of standstill. Behind the slogan "All we need is Girl Power" and a queer self-image, power games, desire, exhaustion and the question of how to remain authentic in a system on the verge of collapse collide. The band is on the verge of collapse - and at the same time at the beginning of a radical confrontation with toxic femininity. This manifests itself in subtle power games between the band members: Competition, jealousy and pressure for perfection simmer behind the glossy façade of girl power and pop culture. From the nostalgia of 90s branding to social media pressure for perfection and the realization that women* can also perpetuate patriarchal structures, these dynamics become visible.

At the center are four musicians - Jeanne, Salome, Alice and Demmi - and the dog Kylo. Each character carries historical archetypes of female roles into the present: Jeanne, the front woman, mirrors Jeanne d'Arc, the virgin warrior, and struggles between independence, power and closeness. Salome refers to the biblical-mythological seductress who combines desire, power and death, and protects her longing for intimacy behind irony and cynicism. Alice follows the line of Alice in Wonderland - curious, searching, caught between reality and dream; she struggles with overwhelm, identity and love. Finally, Demmi embodies the Demeter figure of the band - tired, disillusioned, at once bitter and caring; as an experienced musician, she is the voice of grounding. Kylo, the dog, observes everything instinctively, comments on and reflects the chaos, sometimes ironically abysmally, sometimes with human wisdom.

As a queer sitcom, Crosson stages these tensions with a great deal of humor: between pop culture, hyper-staging and the music business, the characters try to free themselves from entrenched narratives, take their story into their own hands and find an answer to the question of what they can do to counter the patriarchy.

Shari Asha Crosson is a director, actress and author. She studied acting in Stuttgart and has performed at the Maxim Gorki Theater, Schauspiel Köln and Staatsschauspiel Dresden, among others. In 2020/21 she made her directing and writing debut with Mermaids and I wanna be a Boiband at Theater Oberhausen. Since 2023|24 she has directed I wanna be loved by you (awarded at the Westwind-Festival 2024) and Schwindel at Schauspiel Dortmund. As an actress, she can be seen in the Grimme Award-winning film Nichts, was uns passiert as well as in Fett und Fett and Get Up.