Tag Archives: Taylor Mac

MACHINE DAZZLE’S TREASURE

Coincident with New York Fashion Week, Machine Dazzle—artist, maximalist, and Taylor Mac’s costumier—presents TREASURE.

“Undressing layers of his past to make sense of the present, Machine will introduce twelve new looks alongside stories stitched together through song.”*

This musical performance piece will be accompanied by musical director Viva DeConcini and her band.

MACHINE DAZZLE—TREASURE*

Thursday through Saturday, September 5, 6, and 7.

All shows at 7:30 pm.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

1071 Fifth Avenue (at 88th Street), New York City.

From top: Machine Dazzle; Machine Dazzle, Treasure (3); young Machine Dazzle of the Dazzle Dancers, photograph by Mr. Means. Images courtesy and © the artist.

TAYLOR MAC’S HIR

“Working catharsis is my art form, and one of the ways I do that is by the time-honored tradition of making something ridiculous…

“My job as a theater artist is to remind people of things they’ve forgotten about, or they’ve dismissed or buried, or other people have buried for them.” — Taylor Mac, PARIS LA*

Mac—an incandescent magpie of modern culture—is a champion of what he calls “authentic failure,” a process where the performer goes out on a limb and stays there:

“There’s something about getting up there, risking, falling flat on your ass, and then picking yourself up, that—when you’re watching it on a stage—is profound.”*

Mac the performer, in his transformative 24-Decade History of Popular Music shows, risks everything for six, twelve, twenty-four hours at a time. Mac the playwright concentrates his gender-queer socialism into two-hour projects and sends his actors out to walk the plank, where they thrive.

HIR—Mac’s 2014 play in its Los Angeles premiere at the Odyssey—is a wonderfully disturbing satire that imagines a long-abused family reaching its greatest potential by taking revenge on the abusive patriarch (Ron Bottitta), who was—according to his wife—another “mediocre straight white man who’s barely lifting a finger but thinks he’s lifting the world.”

Mom (Cynthia Kania)—who spends enriching weekends at the local museum with her daughter-turned-son Max (Puppett)—no longer cooks or cleans, so when soldier son Isaac (Zack Gearing) returns home from the Middle East, he walks into an exploded kitchen-sink drama of familial detritus.

“Hir”—pronounced “here”—is a pronoun that floats between “her” and “his.” HIR, the play, will be on the boards for only six more weeks. so get your tickets now.

HIR

Through March 17.

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble

2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, West Los Angeles.

*See “A Time to Be Born: Taylor Mac in conversation with Barlo Perry, PARIS LA 15 (Spring 2017): 78–85.

From top: Cynthia Kania (left), Ron Bottitta, and Puppett in Hir; Kania, Puppett, and Zack Gearing; Kania; Gearing, Kania, and Puppett; Gearing, Bottitta, and Kania. Photographs by Enci Box.

KAYLA TANGE PERFORMANCE

Human Resources presents a multimedia installation and performance by Kayla Tange.

Curated by Vardui Sharapkhanyan, DEFINING BOUNDARIES explores the construction of boundaries that protect sacred interiority. Tange’s performance utilizes ritual, sound, ephemeral architecture and collected confessions (including her own) in an attempt to establish psychic, emotional and physical boundaries, guarding against abuse and trauma.

Tange has had solo performances at Coagula Curatorial, Highways Performance Space, Miami Art Basel, and the Asian Burlesque Extravaganza, and performed alongside Sheree Rose, Ron Athey, and Taylor Mac.

 

KAYLA TANGE—DEFINING BOUNDARIES

Performance and opening

Thursday, December 20, at 8 pm.

Installation, December 20 and 21.

Human Resources

410 Cottage Home Street, Chinatown, Los Angeles.

Above: Kayla Tange, courtesy the artist.

Below: Tange. Photograph by Luka Fisher.

TAYLOR MAC IN LOS ANGELES

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Near the end of his recent T magazine essay on queer theater and the landmark plays of Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band), Tony Kushner (Angels in America), Larry Kramer (The Normal Heart), Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy), and Paul Rudnick (Jeffrey), Jesse Green wrote:

“Among the new works I’ve actually seen, the only… piece that rises to the level of those I’ve beatified is Taylor Mac’s A 24-DECADE HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC… Miraculously, it combines Kushner’s vision, Kramer’s anger, Crowley’s cattiness, Fierstein’s warmth and Rudnick’s wit (plus a whole lot else) into one subversive astonishment…”*

Prepare to be astonished as Taylor brings his complete magnum opus to Los Angeles, starting this week. Each chapter in this CAP UCLA presentation in downtown L.A. comprises a 6-hour performance.

 

TAYLOR MAC—A 24-DECADE HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC

CHAPTER 1 (1776-1836), Thursday, March 15, at 6 pm.

CHAPTER II (1836-1896), Saturday, March 17, at 6 pm.

CHAPTER III (1896-1956), Thursday, March 22, at 6 pm.

CHAPTER IV (1956-2016), Saturday, March 24, at 6 pm.

THEATRE AT ACE HOTEL, 929 South Broadway, downtown Los Angeles.

cap.ucla.edu/taylor_mac

See: “A Time to Be Born: Taylor Mac in Conversation with Barlo Perry,” PARIS LA 15:
Taylor Mac in Brooklyn, autumn 2016. Photographs by Teddy Wolff.

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TAYLOR MAC AT TOWN HALL

In his first New York stage performance since his 24-hour show at St. Ann’s Warehouse a year ago, Taylor Mac brings HOLIDAY SAUCE to Town Hall.

“Christmas as calamity. Celebrating the holiday season in all of its dysfunction, Taylor Mac is joined by longtime collaborators designer Machine Dazzle, music director Matt Ray, and a band of eight to reframe the songs you love and the holidays you hate.”*

 

TAYLOR MAC—HOLIDAY SAUCE, Tuesday, December 12. Doors at 7:30.

TOWN HALL, 123 West 43rd Street, New York City.

thetownhall.org/event/taylor-mac

See “A Time to be Born—Taylor Mac in Conversation with Barlo Perry,” PARIS LA 15:

cap.ucla.edu/data/files/general/PARIS_LA_15_Taylor_Mac

Taylor Mac in California, 2017. Photograph by Little Fang.

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