Hedwig and the Angry Inch

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Hedwig and The Angry Inch returns to WestK! Get ready for a night of glamour, grit and pure rock fury with a trailblazing, gender-bending, multi-genre punk-rock tale about being seen for who we are!

Abandoned and betrayed by a series of lovers, wry, gender-queer rock singer Hedwig sets out on a riotous tour of reinvention and revenge with her band The Angry Inch – dissecting love, loss and identity through music, drag, laughter and tears.

This May, after a successful run in 2025, Hedwig and the Angry Inch once again transforms Freespace into a rock carnival, featuring games, drinks, DJ parties and an electric atmosphere. Enter the rebellious world of Hedwig’s festival stage tour with a wild, liberating party sure to set your soul on fire!

First staged off-Broadway in 1998, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s original Tony Award-winning musical has won rave reviews from audiences around the world. The vibrant Hong Kong adaptation, directed by Ivanhoe Lam and staged by a stellar team of local theatre talent, features Jordan Cheng, Best Actor winner at the 2023 Hong Kong Theatre Awards, as Hedwig, singer J.Arie as Hedwig’s husband Yitzhak, and renowned musician Veronica Lee as music director.

Synopsis

Through monologues and songs backed by the band The Angry Inch, Hedwig (née Hansel) describes her life’s search for her other half. The story begins in former East Berlin, where Hansel meets Luther, an American GI who promises to take him to the US on condition that he switch his sex. After a bungled operation, Luther abandons the newly named Hedwig in a Kansas trailer park.
Turning to music, Hedwig meets Tommy, a young boy she takes under her wing and soon falls for. But when Tommy steals her songs and achieves rock star fame, Hedwig is once again cast aside. Driven by anger and a desire for revenge, Hedwig forms a band called The Angry Inch and stalks Tommy’s tour. Joined along the way by Yitzhak, who has traded his glamorous drag persona to become her backup singer, Hedwig navigates a wild, inspiring, rock and roll search for love and identity.

Cast

Jordan Cheng as Hedwig
J.Arie as Yitzhak

The Angry Inch
Drums: HeiHei
Keyboards: K Tsang
Bass Guitar: mue
Guitar: SongChi

Performed in Cantonese, with Chinese and English surtitles.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

WestK Creators celebrates contemporary Hong Kong artists working across a variety of performing arts disciplines, contexts and forms. Encouraging exchange and collaboration, the series showcases innovative original productions, and nurtures experimentation and new perspectives for the Hong Kong performing arts scene. Curated and produced by WestK Performing Arts, WestK Creators promotes diverse creative voices and aesthetics, supports new work development, and facilitates the creation process from concept to stage, through residencies, research and development opportunities and work-in-progress presentations.