Grappling with extraordinary loss and its political denial, theatre and performance during the pandemic innovated forms and approaches to support the work of mourning. In particular, queer practices drew on their deep reservoirs of grief to make room for it in the bewildered present. This paper explores how some of this work intervened the social and cultural climate of the coronavirus pandemic, and how the pandemic enabled queer theatre and performance to reanimate and repurpose its own archives of loss.