Artists Reach Out: Adrienne Truscott

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Adrienne Truscott

Adrienne Truscott
(photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Adrienne Truscott’s work straddles many genres as a means of creative and financial curiosity and survival--choreographer/comedian/performer/writer and half of The Wau Wau Sisters, a 15-year-long boundary-busting cabaret collaboration. Her work over the years--as both performer and maker--crosses lines and methodologies between dance, theater and performance art, and these iterations appear as both seven-minute acts on the drag and club circuit to evening-length pieces. Her critically acclaimed Adrienne Truscott's Asking For It continues to tour, is being made into a documentary special and is considered a critical impetus to the evolving discourse about rape culture and gender.

She’s a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award Artist (Dance) and a 2017 and 2020 FCA grant recipient for Theater and Performance. She’s been presented by or performed at such iconic venues/series as Sydney Opera House, The Moth, The Roundhouse, CBGB’s, PS122, The Kitchen, Danspace, Judson Memorial Church, MoMa among others. Director’s credits include David’s Friend, Lords of Strut, The Cockpainter, Glace Chase Is Talented, and currently AmericanMotherFuck. She’s an occasional writer for The Guardian, and her essays have been published in two Australian anthologies.

Shows currently on tour are THIS (2018 Bessie Nominee for Outstanding Production, Wild Bore (Green Room Award (AU)) and Adrienne Truscott’s A One-Trick Pony. She was about to finish development and rehearsal on Grey Arias with Le Gateau Chocolat (UK/AU) for Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne) before so many things were cancelled, and is currently rehearsing remotely with Brokentalkers (IR) and developing a new solo piece about genius and gender. Past collaborators include Deborah Hay, David Neumann, Split Britches, Sarah Michelson, John Cameron Mitchell, Kiki and Herb, La Soiree/La Clique. She has taught at Wesleyan, Barnard, Bard, Princeton and NYU.

She wears many hats and is attracted to the thrilling possibility of failure as a mandate for rigor.

Adrienne Truscott
(courtesy of Project Arts Centre, Dublin)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

I was in Melbourne working on a project with my friend Le Gateau Chocolat. We were mining our ten-plus years of friendship, correspondence and repartee that mashed up politics, allyship, the darkest of humor and trauma in a strangely easy and immediate way-- always covered with a coat of trashy drag and, often, all that ground would be covered in the same text, FaceTime moment, IG msg, etc. Although we’ve spent umpteen nights, days, two-show days, etc., making each other shriek backstage, attended countless festivals at the same time with different work, endured weird audiences and weirder reviews, this was our first time collaborating.

Grey Arias is a two-hander we had been waiting two years (ten?) to begin. We were on a tight schedule to complete and open this new work in three weeks and then run for three more; we both had reason to anticipate two years of touring work as a result. It’s a piece about race, gender and trauma through the lens of our shared and idiosyncratic performance modes, hurled against and exploiting the (awful) offerings of the problematic scaffolding of Madame Butterfly.

We had demanded that things around the show’s content be reflected institutionally and in our creative team, and we were working and collaborating in a mode that was deeper, funnier and more dangerous than anything else I’ve done, I think. It felt radical. It was thrilling.

We arrived on March 2, and were postponed and on flights by March 18, a day or two after our first off-book showing. We were already working in the modes and strategies performing artists contrive and develop in order to survive: en route to Melbourne, I had performed another piece in a group evening at On The Boards (Seattle) and then flown to Wellington, NZ to join a Philadelphia-based, queer cabaret cohort, doing yet a different piece of work, and Gateau was arriving, colliding with me, from similar circumstances. We wanted a dramaturg but didn’t have the budget for one from the institution. So, my dear friend John came to Melbourne and they worked with us for a week in exchange for housing and introductions.

I was supposed to finish that and leave for Ireland for 2 different projects via another different gig in London and Croatia. All gone for now. Making all of that happen was just another iteration of the ongoing tetris game of survival--turning one gig into two, letting one paid-for plane fare allow for another gig, maybe this gig could invisibly underwrite this other one nearby; use accommodation money to rent a friend’s place and pocket the rest for your cellphone bill. It’s a grift, isn’t it?

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

I returned to performing the year I dropped out of college. At the time I thought I was just confused, bored, finding my way. I now know that dropping out was a common response to a (too common) traumatic event. I was wandering around a bit but found myself in the company of two important, life-changing groups: a hippie circus in the mold of Bread & Puppet and Wesleyan dance majors, and both of them changed my life.

In part, I realized that I had massive defensive, protective structures built up around me and something about performing--my attraction to it and my terror of it--made me know that, if I went deep into what it means, I would be able to actually be present in my own life. I don’t know another way I would have found that.

Most of my teachers--whether in improvisational movement, compositional improvisation--taught me to practice being present and lured me away from the kinds of "protections" that had, up until that point, made life seem strange and alien. Deborah Hay’s work involved grounding and practicing presence in different but profound ways that still reside in my body and practice regardless of what I’m practicing.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

I lost a year’s actual work in a week, and the loss of that work was followed by the loss of anticipated work. Amidst all the confusion, my first move was to just rest. I hadn’t had nothing to do, for that long, in 20 years--for which I’m both grateful and exhausted! Then I got sick with COVID-19. So, I just concentrated on getting better and not infecting anyone else.

It’s clear to me that I probably won’t be on any kind of stage for at least a year, and that’s how I make my living--in theater spaces filled with people. I have other projects and collaborations that are text-based in some way. So, those are continuing (via Zoom with Ireland, but...).

In the meantime, I am envisioning how to build/create a place for artists on the property I share with my partner of eighteen years (who is also an artist) that imagines a way to offer space and refuge that is accessible, somehow, outside the traditional models of residency applications and in-kind support. I know this is possible, because I feel like I’ve been operating in a way that engages, straddles and avoids traditional models all at once. So that’s what I’m doing until further notice--yardwork and building.

I feel that my movement practice has become task-based and weather related--like some kind of artist-farmer consulting the weather as if it were an Independent Contractors’s Almanac for when to work outside (tear down, build up) and when to work inside (write, meet, consult).

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about?

I have been wanting to create these little out-cropped cabins for years, but I’m always too busy and on the road. I care about making space for other artists and participating in community/chosen family. I care about artist-to-artist strategies that evolve and re-imagine how we exchange support, share a precarious economic landscape, provide for each other and which deploys many of the same strategies I use as an independent artist to something that supports a community.

I don’t know how "legit" it will be because a lot of "legit" places in the world (banks, local permit offices, etc.) don’t view my twenty years of art-making and bill-paying as proof that I can function responsibly or even exist! It’s kind of hilarious. I just don’t look like a real person or thing "on paper" unless it’s in an arts-industry context. So, I’m going the outlaw route to get it done my own way--weather permitting!

How does your practice function within the world we have now?

For now, my practice feels like some iteration that is adjacent to what it used to be--and will be for the foreseeable future--meaning, I am writing and conceiving and collaborating; I am learning to video edit, because I want to and I have the "time," and I want to be in control of if and how my live work translates to digital, if it comes to that (I’m resistant and protective of our live art for now); I’m mentoring some other artists. And, today I’m gonna work outside, building a second DIY structure for someone, an artist, who needs space, refuge, etc. "until the rains come" at 8pm tonight!

As a maker, I’ve always worked in a mode that first asks if an obstacle presented can be a gift or a solution that may be more satisfying than the direct route. For now, that means physical labor and imagining this little artists’ compound. My friend who is a trans production coordinator and lighting designer who is between housing for the month of June is arriving on June 2 to help us build in exchange for housing and (socially distanced) community. So, it’s already starting!

Briefly share one self-care tip that has special meaning to you now.

My self-care involves not hustling gigs online in a panic, meditating, curating my digital interactions carefully and mowing the lawn which is always a very rich creative space for me.

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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Artists Reach Out: Sara Juli

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Sara Juli

Sara Juli
(photo: Brett Deutsch)

Sara Juli in
Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis
(photo: Kristofer Alan Thompson)

Sara Juli has been creating and performing comedic dance-theater for two decades and has performed her work extensively around the world. Sara is the 2017 Maine Fellow for the Performing Arts, is a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation USArtists recipient, a National Dance Project recipient for 2019-2021, and is touring her newest solo, Burnt-Out Wife nationally. Sara is Chair of Bates Dance Festival’s Advisory Board and an Affiliated Artist of Bates College. She is the Founder/Director of Surala Consulting, a fundraising consultancy supporting arts organizations and individual artists. www.suralaconsulting.com www.sarajuli.com @sarajulimoves

Sara Juli in Burnt-Out Wife
(photo: Nick Pierce)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

In 2018-2019, I imagined, wrote, choreographed and built a new solo performance piece about the decay and detritus of marriage over time--Burnt-Out Wife--the largest production of my career. I invested deeply in an incredible collaborative team including a dramaturg (Michelle Mola), set designer (Pamela Moulton), costume designer (Carol Farrell), sound designer (Ryan MacDonald), illustrator/graphics designer (Devon Kelley-Yurdin), co-songwriter (Sorcha Cribben-Merril), and lighting designer (Justin Moriarty). We worked for many months on creating a Pepto-Bismol-pink bathroom, where the character dances, laughs and sings-out her emotions and secrets.

I feel beyond fortunate that I was able to premiere the work in Portland, Maine, thanks to a commission from SPACE and Portland Ovations and additionally grateful I was able to bring the show to New York City through a commission from Dixon Place and American Dance Festival. I was also able to perform the show in Concord, NH and Portsmouth, NH--the latter on March 7-8 when everything was just starting to shut down. However, my tour was just getting started, and my hard work was just starting to pay off.

Thanks to receiving the National Dance Project, I had a robust tour scheduled for 2020 and 2021, which is now either cancelled or tenuous, at best, for the foreseeable future. To have invested so deeply both artistically and financially into the creative process, and to not be able to share/tour the work, nor receive any (much needed) compensation is devastating. This work is my livelihood in every sense of the word.

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

My parents enrolled me in a creative movement class in New London, CT when I was three years old. My teacher, L’Ana Burton, still calls me her first dance student, a title I wear proudly. A few years later she founded and became director of the Connecticut College Children’s Dance Center where I danced technique and improvisation classes until I was fourteen. L’Ana taught me to find portals into my imagination and to access tools that would form movement thoughts and ideas that had depth.

At Conn College, during high school, I met Martha Myers who encouraged me to attend American Dance Festival where I enrolled as a student for six summers. My undergraduate experience was at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY where I was a Dance major. As a senior, I took a two-week intensive workshop with Deborah Hay.  The workshop was long, slow and meditative. I lost myself fully in her practice of harvesting magic and, literally one day, something clicked. I had an actual AHA! moment where I unearthed an artistic practice and voice (literally) that I have been cultivating and growing ever since.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

Currently, I am practicing a combination of parenting, exercising, stress-eating, calling friends and family, cooking for my family of four, and trying to make, find or borrow money to live. A lot of my time is spent on meal planning. How is it that breakfast and lunch are so close together? Why does the biggest meal of the day come at a time when I’m most exhausted?

Envisioning is a difficult practice these days, and I have good days and bad. On a bad day, I envision never being able to perform live for audiences again. As a performer who physically touches audiences heavily during shows, I envision that part of my work not being possible anymore. I envision needing to get a job in a different industry. Maybe I could be an Event Planner? Maybe I need to work full-time as a Development professional and let go of my artistic practice?

On a good day I envision there being a space where my solo work can be performed safely. I envision people’s need for laughter, and my gift for making audiences laugh. I envision writing and performing a stand-up comedy show that gets picked-up by Netflix or Hulu. I envision the Burnt-Out Wife tour resuming. I envision a teaching platform where I can help empower our artistic community to fundraise in a landscape that is primed and ready to donate to the cause. I envision so many things each day, it’s hard to keep track.

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about? How does your practice function within the world we have now?

I most care about my two wonderful daughters. I expend a lot of energy trying to give off the appearance that all is well. And some days all is well.

We are self-isolating in a home that I love, with a yard and fresh air in abundance. We are trying to get a dog. We are so lucky and blessed. We’ve been playing Four Square, Scrabble, dancing in our underwear, watching Broadway musicals, and painting rocks as part of another attempt at a garden. My husband and I are taking long walks together. We argue. We are kind. We are scared. We parent our children as best we can.

I am learning to move slower and to stop and smell the flowers. (No, literally I smelled some daffodils in our yard the other day--who knew?) We are finding silver linings.

I think about the relevance of the arts and my practice during times of crisis. I think about being a housewife. I think about my mother. I think about laundry--all the time. I think about recording myself singing a song in my bathtub. I think about “becoming a digital artist” and get lost every time. I think about my value. I think about death. I think about keeping my children safe. Mostly, I think about finding a new normal for my children and myself, and about a future where dance exists, and I am still a part of it.

Briefly share one self-care tip that has special meaning to you now.

I have been e-exercising with a group of newish dance friends, who I know from Bates Dance Festival, each morning at 10am.  I look forward to seeing their smiling faces, laughing, chatting and then sweating our asses off together.

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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Marital burnout is no laughing matter...and yet: Sara Juli

Sara Juli in her show, Burnt-Out Wife, at Dixon Place
(photo: Nick Pierce)

Burnt-Out Wife
Sara Juli
Dixon Place
February 21-28

What a set! Designer Pamela Moulton's vision for Burnt-Out Wife, a solo performance by multi-talented Sara Juli, is lying in wait for the Dixon Place audience. And I say that advisedly, for this set is a monster, an eyesore. A cotton-candy-pink bathroom complete with polka dot toilet seat cover, a filmy pin-up girl robe with hot pink feather boa trim; and a wall splotched with wound-like flowers crafted, with childlike imperfection, out of who knows what. You gaze and wonder what Juli has in store for her unsuspecting visitors.

Burnt-Out Wife is everything that set suggests--and more. "I wanna get married...that's why I was born," sings Nellie McKay in the wry, melancholic song that ushers in this brilliant performance. Juli appears, giving the left-up toilet seat a certain look that immediately invokes the mate at fault and aiming another look at two baby dolls strewn about the floor. But if you think that tells you everything you'll need to know about Juli's project, think again.

Written by Juli, the performance draws clarity and vitality from her background in dance and stand-up comedy, and she shows ease and confidence in both genres. Marital burnout might not be first on your list of the funniest things in life, but Juli is really funny without straining and really fresh. She looks like a woman waking up to realize she's an Amazon and one with a future in performance art. She's physically strong--as you'll discover if she shakes your hand in a firm grip or strikes poses to represent the misalignment between her desires and her husband's--stronger than you might suspect from the weary look she gives the world most of the time. And she's smart as a whip, more than holding her own with the unseen spouse and her wackadoodle surroundings as she slyly, steadily lays waste to heteronormative conventions. In fact--through the magic touch of Moulton, costume designer Carol Farrell, sound designer Ryan McDonald and lighting designer David Ferri--she turns her hideous bathroom into a throne room worthy of pissed-as-hell royalty.

The surprises, joys and rewards of this show are many, and I will not spoil them for you as I hope you'll make your way to Dixon Place tonight for the final performance. But hurry! Last night's show was packed with happy people laughing their heads off.

Burnt-Out Wife concludes this evening with a show at 7pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)


******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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David Ogden Stiers, 75

David Ogden Stiers, Major Winchester on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 75
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, March 4, 2018

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Bob Smith, 59

Bob Smith, Groundbreaking Gay Comedian, Is Dead at 59
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, January 25, 2018

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"THIS" is what again? Adrienne Truscott at American Realness

Adrienne Truscott in THIS
(photo: Paul Goode)

Adrienne Truscott brought her adaptable THIS show to American Realness 2018 at Abrons Arts Center's Playhouse, and I caught that final performance on the night also marking AR's finale. The APAP conference, too, drew to its close Tuesday morning, although there are APAP-targeted festivities (PSNY's COIL shows; Under The Radar's added week for the great Split Britches duo) still going strong this week.

So, what exactly is THIS? And who exactly is Truscott?

The answer to both seems to be: A LOT. Also, probably, IT DEPENDS.

The woman has worked through numerous genres--from dance to writing to circus to cabaret and stand-up comedy--and THIS draws liberally from her history. Which is what makes it such a fun, elusive and magical this.

At Abrons, it started on a raw stage--look at that rough wall, that corrugated gate, the metal ladder in the corner, the stained paint cloth and other unidentifiable stuff littering the floor--with a rambunctious comic who might or might not be Truscott opening for Truscott, who is who we thought we had come to see and believe we're seeing but now might or might not be seeing because she says she's opening for Truscott who has worked really hard on what we're about to see. Anywho....

After issuing a warning about a blackout we're supposed to imagine that doesn't happen when she says it does but then happens when we think it won't, the unidentified opener is dropping sex-related jokes to varying degrees of success. ("Comedy and abortion have something in common.... Timing is everything.") Timing is important, too, to a stage
magician's sleight of hand, which is what THIS turns out to be. Anything can appear and disappear when we least expect it--elements of decor; running narratives that abruptly stop and run away and...wait...run back, then vanish again so you don't know where they were supposed to be taking you; a mechanical bird that flies prettily until...oh, no...it doesn't; and a performer who sometimes hides behind scenery even as she continues to talk to us.

What to make of it? It's such a...such a...thing, this THIS, and the audience I sat among--mainly young, I noticed--loved it hard and answered it with a big roar.

If you did not see this THIS but you happen get another chance to see THIS, I suspect you will see a somewhat different THIS. But, no worries. You will see Truscott--trust--and she is always worth it, no matter who shows up onstage.

Writing and performance: Adrienne Truscott
Direction: Ellie Heyman
Sound/video/set design: Carmine Covelli
Light Design: Mary Ellen Stebbins

Closed. For general information on American Realness 2018, click here.

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Jerry Van Dyke, 86

Jerry Van Dyke, ‘Coach’ Actor and Foil for His Brother, Dick, Dies at 86
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, January 6, 2017

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Rose Marie, 94

Rose Marie, Decades-Spanning Showbiz Veteran, Is Dead at 94
by Alison J. Peterson, The New York Times, December 28, 2017

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Jim Nabors, 87

Jim Nabors, 87, TV’s Gomer Pyle, Is Dead
by Richard Severo, The New York Times, November 30, 2017

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Ann Wedgeworth, 83

Ann Wedgeworth, 83, Dies; Tony-Winning Actress Known for ‘Three’s Company’
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, November 22, 2017

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Those rebellious Trocks, now on film!

REBELS ON POINTE

(2017, 90 minutes)

A film by Bobbi Jo Hart

An Icarus Films Release

This month, Icarus Films and director Bobbi Jo Hart will celebrate the US theatrical release of Hart's Rebels on Pointe, the first documentary devoted to the all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. For more than four decades, the New York-based Trocks have strapped on pointe shoes, delighting world-wide audiences with irreverent, accessible interpretations of ballet's classics. While the gender-bending is all in fun, their dancing also demonstrates serious technical capability and attention to detail.Artistic director Tory Dobrin sees no reason, he says, to choose between joke or no joke. The Trocks, says ABT's James Whiteside, an ardent admirer, strike "an incredible balance between high art and clever camp."

Generous with samples of the troupe on stage, Hart's film is also lavish with clips of interviews with and about the dancers. We come to appreciate their work ethic, their drive to perform and the joys and challenges of day-to-day life within and outside of dance.

I only wish Hart had delved a little deeper, seizing an opportunity to contextualize the Trocks's achievements. Dance fans can now explore an exciting landscape in which openly queer, trans and gender non-conforming artists expand how we see, read and respond to dance, both classical and contemporary. It would have been interesting to hear from out-lesbian dance artist and educator Katy Pyle whose Ballez--a philosophy, practice and company--is designed to re-write "the narratives of Story Ballets to tell the history of our lineage, as dancers, and as queers" and re-imagine "Archetypal characters to reflect multiplicity: of identity, desire and expression." And Pyle is only one of many artists upending conventional roles and affirming more gender fluidity in dance today.

Rebels on Pointe leans more personal than political, though, of course, these things glide along a spectrum. It's more of a glance behind the scenes and the dressing room door but, if you love people, love dancers, love the Trocks, that might be enough.

See Rebels on Pointe 

in the following theaters:

New York City: opening November 15 at Quad Cinema

Los Angeles: opening November 24 at Laemmle Music Hall

Chicago: opening November 24 at Gene Siskel Film Center

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Robert Guillaume, 89

Robert Guillaume, Emmy-Winning Star of ‘Benson,’ Dies at 89
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, October 24, 2017

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Shelley Berman, 92

Shelley Berman, Stand-Up Comic Who Skewered Modern Life, Dies at 92
by Peter Keepnews, The New York Times, September 1, 2017

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Jay Thomas, 69

Jay Thomas, Actor on ‘Murphy Brown’ and ‘Cheers,’ Is Dead at 69
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, August 24, 2017

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Jerry Lewis, 91

Jerry Lewis, Mercurial Comedian and Filmmaker, Dies at 91
by Dave Kehr, The New York Times, August 20, 2017

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Dick Gregory, 84

Dick Gregory, 84, Dies; Found Humor in the Civil Rights Struggle
by Clyde Haberman, The New York Times, August 19, 2017

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Joseph Bologna, 82

Joseph Bologna, Onscreen Tough Guy With a Sense of Humor, Dies at 82
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, August 14, 2017

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D'Lo bears witness--and gets laughs--at Dixon Place

Dixon Place presents comic performer D'Lo
in To T, or Not to T,
a highlight of the 2017 Hot! Festival,
DP's annual celebration of queer arts and culture.
(photos: Ryan Harper Gray)

Bearing witness is the only way I know to be alive. -- D'Lo

From the outset, D'Lo literally trampolines and pogo-sticks into our hearts and, if you haven't seen him perform before--and I hadn't--you figure that's cute. But where will he go after this wacky first impression?

To T, or Not to T--a Dixon Place commission for this summer's Hot! Festival--hooks in and never lets you go. Just over an hour in length, this one-trans show is, by turns, hilarious, tender and sharp. D'Lo's so talented and smooth, he makes it all look effortless, but you know a hellawork went into getting all this material to line up and flow this well.

To T, or Not to T traces D'Lo's experience being raised as a girl in a Tamil-Sri Lankan family in Lancaster, California ("aka Sri Lancaster, California") and gradually coming to terms with his true gender identity. He has now been on testosterone for two years. Right there, that's a whole lot of content. Heavy-going, you say? Oh, no. Not one bit.

What gives D'Lo and his narrative so much lift and embraceable charm is how strongly it is rooted in his observation of and complete delight in his family--a family that wrestled with challenges but ended up cheering him on in the most heartwarming way. Which makes me think: Despite the idiot in the White House and his delusional supporters, we're actually living a moment in America where D'Lo's relatives and friends could easily find themselves the subject of a quality tv sitcom. And I would watch it. Every last episode.

To T, or Not to T continues tonight and July 21-22, all performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

For a full Hot! Festival schedule (through August 4), click here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Charlie Murphy, 57

Charlie Murphy, ‘Chappelle’s Show’ Star and Eddie’s Brother, Dies at 57
by Maya Salam, The New York Times, April 12, 2017

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Chelsea Brown, 74

Chelsea Brown, of ‘Laugh-In,’ Dies at 74
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, April 7, 2017

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