NOVEMBER 6 - DECEMBER 15, 2019
created by @GaryXXXFisher
directed by Machel Ross
presented in association with MAKEREADY and Black Boyfriend LLC
with
Ross Days (Yung Kathy or Kathy Acker)
Miles Greenberg (Meesh or Yukio Mishima)
AJ Harris (MandinGO or Tiger Mandingo or Michael Johnson)
Dhari Noel (Lil Delaney or Samuel Delaney)
and @GaryXXXFisher or Gary Fisher or ...
Choreographer: Ellenore Scott
Scenic Designer: Frank J. Oliva
Costume Designer: Sabrina Bianca Guillaume
Lighting Designer: Cheyenne Sykes
Sound Designer: Christopher Darbassie
Production Stage Manager: Arysbells Figueredo
Props/Assistant Scenic Designer: Patricia Marjorie
Master Electrician/Assistant Lighting Designer: Christina Tang
Assistant Costume Designer: Caroline Fana
Assistant Sound Designer: Margaret Montagna
Assistant Stage Manager: Caren Celine Morris
Production Assistant: Federica Borlenghi
Carpenters: Michael DeCaul, Josh Leon, Daniel Quinn, Jeffrey Rowell, Adam Wyron
Production Driver: David Spector
Electricians: Kourtney Charles, Cat Dawes, Jack Scaletta, Aaliyah Stewart
Sound Crew: Tyler Walkes
Photo by Maria Baranova
BIOS:
Federica Borlenghi (Production Assistant) is an Italian Multi-Disciplinary artist from Milan based in Brooklyn. She holds a diploma in Photography & Digital Filmmaking as well as a BFA in Dramatic Arts from the College of Performing Arts - the New School for Drama, where she focused her studies in Directing and Playwriting. She is the Co-Founder and Creative Producer of HERE WE GO, a site-specific live performance festival, and the creator of COLORANDO, a paint-therapy performance practice.
Christopher Darbassie (Sound Designer) is a Trinidadian American interdisciplinary artist. (Select Sound Credits): Waafricka 123 (Criminal Queerness Festival), The Hole (New Ohio Theater), Neptune (Dixon Place) + (Brooklyn Museum), Alt-Black (Soho Rep), Two Star Motel (ShapeShifter Lab), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Brooklyn Gallery Players Club). BFA Pace University. Wingspace 2019-2020 Sound Design Fellow. www.darbassiedesign.com Upcoming: Julius Caesar and Macbeth in rep (Stella Adler Acting Studio).
Ross Days (Yung Kathy or Kathy Acker): The Bushwick Starr debut! Ross is a Brooklyn-based comedian, actress, and international icon whose work includes hosting Pop+Politics at The Neuhouse, and most recently, opening for Pete Davidson at Governors Room. You can regularly catch Ross at Strawberry Milk Stand Up Show. Ross is grateful for the opportunity to explore Yung Kathy and the words of @GARYXXXFISCHER. B.A. Whittier College @rossthedays_
Arysbells Figueredo (Production Stage Manager). Selected Credits Off-Broadway: The Memory Show (Transport Group). NYC: South by South Death (National Sawdust), When I Started Dating Men (Dixon Place HOT! Festival), Red Flamboyant (Firebone Theatre Company), Things I Left On Long Island (FRINGE NYC). Regional: Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them(Company One), Far From Heaven (SpeakEasy Stage Company). International: Arrabal (Festival Iberoamericano), Baby (Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Other credentials: New York Comic Con, World Science Festival, Keen Company, Transport Group, 24 Hour Plays, New York Musical Festival, New York Fashion Week, UglyRhino Productions. BA from the University of Florida. Go Gators! Actor’s Equity Member Candidate. Many thanks to Machel, Jeremy, and the Bushwick Starr team for trusting me with this incredible show.
French Canadian-born Miles Greenberg (Meesh or Yukio Mishima) is an installation artist, performance art director and researcher in movement theory. His practice primarily consists of large-scale works of immersive long-durational performance. Upon taking leave from formal education at age seventeen, Greenberg projected himself into a four year-long independent research project on movement and architecture as it relates to the black body. This took place between France, the USA, Germany, Haïti and China, and spanned a number of solo artistic/research residencies at École Jacques Lecoq and Musée du Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Red Gate Gallery Beijing and Long Island’s Watermill Center. Meanwhile, he pursued a largely self-driven education in linguistics, perfumery, butoh and physical theatre.
Alejandro (AJ) Harris (MandinGO or Tiger Mandingo or Michael Johnson) grew up in Washington DC. He started acting and dancing in a couple of shows, one being Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen. Though his hobbies stretch from acting, dancing, and various sports, he has taken off to pursue his career within modeling. He’s excited to be a part of Black Exhibition!
A Brooklyn Native, Sabrina Bianca Guillaume (Costume Designer) is a freelance costume designer for dance, theatre, and all dress up affairs. She received her BA in English and Theatre Arts from CUNY John Jay (2014). MFA in Theater, with a concentration in design and technical production from CUNY Brooklyn College (2017). Off Broadway: The Winter’s Tale (The Public theater – mobile unit), The Red Letter Plays: Fucking A (Signature Theater), Public Works: The Odyssey. Off Off Broadway: Cute Activist (The Bushwick Starr), DUCKLINGS (Jack). Often working on world premieres of productions.
Patrícia Marjorie (Props Designer/Assistant Scenic Designer) is a Brazilian multi-craft artist - actress, director and craft master, based in NYC with experience on different types and scopes of projects in theater. Patrícia moved to NYC after 19 years of extensive work in theater productions in Brasília, Brazil's capital and federal district, where she got her Bachelor Degree in Performing Arts by Universidade de Brasília (UnB). Experienced executing measurable creative solutions in arts, design and interactive marketing. Patrícia's theatrical craft credits have included design props for classical plays, like Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (Brasilia 2014), modern adaptations such as Heiner Muller's Hamlet- Machine (Brasilia 2001); TV Shows such as Rainha da Cocada by Dulce Delight (NYC 2018) and interactive Performances such as The Other’s Shadow by Rodrigo Fisher (NYC 2018). Patricia's NYC works include Props producer for DOOMOCRACY by Pedro Reyes and directed by Meghan Finn -2016 - NYC, Los PIED PIPERS OF WOODSIDE recent production on TEATRO LATEA. Patricia Marjorie was also responsible for property master for Mac Wellman’s Sincerity Forever, Sandalwood Box and The Fez” at the Flea Theatre (2019). Patricia is also Creative Associate Producer at The Tank.
Margaret Montagna (Assistant Sound Designer). Select design credits include: A Woman of the World (59E59 Studio C), Raw Pasta (The New Ohio Theater), Pippin (Theater for a New City), Anna in the Tropics (Stella Adler Acting Studio), Wizard of Oz (Bishop Kearney High School), Queen (Astoria Boys and Girls Club), Prisoners of Quai Dong (The Tank), Williston (IATI), Holy Ghosts (Urban Stages), The Color of Desire (Stella Adler Studios), They Promised Her the Moon (Theatre at St. Clements). Selected assistant design credits include: Happy Talk (The Griffin at Signature Theater Center), The Pain of my Belligerence (The Peter Jay Sharp Theater), The Niceties (Stage II at MTC) margaretmontagnasd.com.
Caren Celine Morris (Assistant Stage Manager) is a multidisciplinary theatre artist from The Bronx. She aims to promote inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in all of her projects. She has been involved in many different artistic projects located in all of the mainland boroughs of NYC, mostly theatrical in nature. Caren has worked on projects at The Tank, and with Right Angle Entertainment, Quill Entertainment Company, The Cradle Theatre Company, and the New York Musical Festival.
Dhari Noel (Lil Delaney or Samuel Delaney) is an actor and educator born and raised in Harlem. Recent productions include: In The Penal Colony (Next Door at NYTW, The Tank) Floater, Ride (Cherry Picking), The Essential Ella Maythorne (Dixon Hall), Telegraph Bois (Ars Nova), UnAmerican Activities (ECFS). He is also a regular participant of the annual Cherry Picking Festival as an actor, writer, and on the production team. Dhari's teaching focuses on the themes of social justice and storytelling all in effort to challenge systems of power.
Frank J. Oliva (Scenic Designer) is an Cuban-American Stage Designer. With Machel Ross: The House of Bernarda Alba, For Claude and Aunt Leaf. Recent work include world premieres and new productions at Cincinnati Symphony, Urban Stages, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Two River Theatre Company, Kitchen Theater and others. Associate Designer on projects for Broadway, Lincoln Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Atlantic, Signature, Playwrights Horizons, and more. Winner of the 2017 Innovative Theatre Award for Stage Design, 2018 Audelco Award nominee for Best Stage Design and a featured designer at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space. BFA:NYU. Member of Wingspace & United Scenic Artists. www.frankjoliva.com
Machel Ross (Director) is a Director and creative collaborator based in NYC. She specializes in the development of new work and aesthetic world building. She’s worked as an associate/assistant for Lileana Blain Cruz (Marys Seacole, The House that Will Not Stand), Drew McOnie (King Kong), Lila Neugebauer (Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie, The Antipodes, The Wolves) and Annie Baker (Untitled Project). Machel is a 2019 grant recipient of the Women's Fund for Film, TV and Theatre for her short film Signs He Made at Home. BFA-NYU Playwrights Horizons Theater School.
Ellenore Scott (Choreographer) is a New York–based choreographer and performer. Scott most recently choreographed the Off-Broadway Revival of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theater. Scott also served as the associate choreographer for Head Over Heels and King Kong on Broadway, and she was the assistant choreographer for the Broadway revivals of Cats and Falsettos. She choreographed Off-Broadway’s Pride and Prejudice at Cherry Lane Theatre. Scott is the Artistic Director of ELSCO Dance, a New York City contemporary dance company. As a performer she was a finalist and an All-Star on the hit television show “So You Think You Can Dance.” She performed on numerous television shows (Glee, Smash, The Ellen Show, The Blacklist, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to name a few) and danced with Janet Jackson. Instagram: @ellenorescott
Cheyenne Sykes (Lighting Designer) is a NY based designer originally from the Coast Salish region of Canada. Her work has been showcased at both the Prague Quadrennial and the Design Wing of the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Select Design Credits: See You (The Bridge Production Group), Select Ralph Lauren 867/888 Windows, Damast & Kerr in Concert (Ailey Citigroup Theater), The Slow Room (PSNY, Annie Dorsen), AGNES (Lesser America), PROTOTYPES (Susan Marshall & Company), The Feels (KMS) (New Ohio), Blue Ridge (Williamstown). Select Assistant LD Credits: Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizons), Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (MCC Theater), Bonnaroo Site Lighting 2018/2019, White Noise (The Public Theater), "Daddy" (New Group/Vineyard), Drake ‘Boy Meets World’ (European Tour). www.cheyennesykes.com
Christina Tang (Master Electrician/Assistant Lighting Designer) is a lighting designer based in New York City. Select credits: (Untitled) The Black Act (PSNY), The Happy Garden of Life (New Ohio), Madame Lynch (The Drunkard's Wife), skin flick city (Columbia Stages). Christinaftang.com
SPECIAL THANKS:
Lidiane Araujo, Viola Davinson, The Flea, Green Streets Salads, Junia Lara, Maria Hernandez Park, Materials for the Arts, New York Theatre Workshop, Laura Reese, Slick Willie Team, Christina Tang
READING/LISTENING/VIEWING LIST:
Gary in Your Pocket by Gary Fisher
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany
Various Works of Writing by Kathy Acker
Various Works of Photography by Yukio Mishima
Various Works of Music by Julian Eastman
Kathy Acker was an influential postmodernist writer and performance artist, whose many books include Blood and Guts in High School; Don Quixote; Literal Madness; Empire of the Senseless; In Memoriam to Identity; My Mother: Demonology; Pussy, King of the Pirates; Portrait of an Eye; and Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective and the Burning Bombing of America. (Grove Atlantic Press)
A novelist and critic who taught literature and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts and Temple University, Samuel R. Delany had won four Nebula Awards and a Hugo Award by the time he was 27. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002, by which time he'd also been chosen by the Lambda Literary Report as one of the 50 people who had done the most to change our view of gayness in the last half-century. In 2013, he was named the 31st Damon Knight Memorial Foundation Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Samuel R. Delany’s science fiction and fantasy tales are available in Aye and Gomorrah and Other Stories. His collection Atlantis: Three Tales and Phallos are experimental fiction. His novels include science fiction such as the Nebula-Award winning Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection, as well as Nova and Dhalgren. His four-volume series Return to Nevèrÿon is sword-and-sorcery. Most recently, he has written the SF novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His 2007 novel Dark Reflections won the Stonewall Book Award. Other novels include Equinox, Hogg, and The Mad Man. Delany was the subject of a 2007 documentary, The Polymath, by Fred Barney Taylor, and he has written a popular creative writing textbook, About Writing. He is the author of the widely taught Times Square Red / Times Square Blue, and his book-length autobiographical essay, The Motion of Light in Water, won a Hugo Award in 1989. All are available as both e-books and paperback editions. Delany is the author of several collections of critical essays. His interview in the Paris Review’s “Art of Fiction” series appeared in spring 2012. In 2015 he was the recipient of the Nicolas Guillén Award for philosophical fiction. His novella The Atheist in the Attic appeared in February 2018. Professor Delany retired from teaching at the end of 2015. He lives in Philadelphia with his partner, Dennis Rickett. (samueldelany.com)
The incandescent African American writer Gary Fisher was completely unpublished when he died of AIDS in 1994 at the age of 32. Gary in Your Pocket, which includes all of Fisher’s stories and a generous selection from his journals, notebooks, and poems, introduces readers to a tender, graphic, extravagant, and unswervingly incisive talent. In Fisher’s writings the razor-sharp rage is equalled only by the enveloping sweetness; the raw eroticism by a dazzling writerly elegance. Evocations of a haunting and mobile childhood are mixed in Fisher’s stories with an X-ray view of the racialized sexual vernaculars of gay San Francisco; while the journals braid together the narratives of sexual exploration and discovery, a joyous and deepening vocation as a writer, a growing intimacy with death, and an engagement with racial problematics that becomes ever more gravely and probingly imaginative. A uniquely intimate, unflinching testimony of the experience of a young, African American gay man in the AIDS emergency, Gary in Your Pocket includes an introduction by Don Belton that describes Fisher’s achievement in the context of other work by Black gay men such as Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill, and a biographical afterword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. (Duke University Press)
In 2015, Michael Johnson, also known as Tiger Mandingo in the media, was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a homophobic jury for allegedly not disclosing his HIV status to sexual partners. He was recently released 25 years short of his maximum possible prison stint. Johnson was a wrestler and student at Lindenwood University in Missouri. In 2013, he was accused of “recklessly infecting” multiple male partners with the HIV virus. His recent exoneration comes after the revelations that the jury during his trial was stacked with white heterosexuals, many of whom admitted they believed homosexuality was a sin. An appeals court subsequently ruled his original trial was “fundamentally unfair” and tainted with racism, homophobia, and a prosecuting attorney insistent on getting a harsher sentence than many who commit murder receive. The conviction reversal reinforces the claims of activists who have long claimed the United States’ HIV criminalization laws have ignored long-term medical science and fail to actually reduce infection rates. The legal system, according to statistics, also disproportionately punishes Black and brown communities. The American Medical Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America have condemned laws criminalizing HIV. Michael Johnson’s case is reportedly having an effect on legislation in Missouri. Currently, House Bill 167 has been proposed and would reduce the punishment for failing to disclose one’s HIV status from a felony to a misdemeanor. It would also take into consideration whether a person was taking medication or used a condom during sex. Johnson hopes that if there’s anything good that can come from his experience, it’s that the state will update its laws so a case like his doesn’t happen again. “Maybe my trial did happen in some way to motivate some change,” he told reporters after exiting the Boonville Correctional Center on Tuesday (July 9). “It’s good I had the support of everyone who wrote me letters. There are times when you get down, and it helps that people knew why I was fighting the system.” (BET)
Yukio Mishima is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. Mishima's work is characterized by its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death. Ideologically a right wing nationalist, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan's 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed seppuku. (Wikipedia)
The Bushwick Starr's Mission
The Bushwick Starr is an Obie Award winning not-for-profit theater that presents an annual season of new performance works. We are an organization defined by both our artists and our community, and since 2007, we have grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance. We provide a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and we are a sanctuary where established artists come to experiment and innovate. We are also a neighborhood playhouse, serving our Bushwick, Brooklyn community's diverse artistic needs and impulses.
Our Team
Noel Allain - Co-Founder / Artistic Director
Sue Kessler - Co-Founder / Creative Director
John Del Gaudio - Producing Director
Lauren Miller - Development Director
Jehan O. Young - General Management Associate
Emma Johnson - Production Manager
Jay Maury - Technical Director
Vanessa Felix - Youth + Community Programmer
Modesto Flako Jimenez - Youth + Community Programmer
Alice Gorelick - Development Associate
Box Office Manager: Eddy Jose Perez
House Manager: Jennifer Williams
William Burke - Artistic Development Associate/Reading Series Curator
Jillian Walker - Reading Series Curator
Our Board
Michael Contini
Gita Deo
Jeff Griffin
Robin Griffiths - Chair
David Herskovits
Oliver Kramer
Sheldon McLeod
Keanu Reeves
David Ringer
Elizabeth Sorrell
Rachel Viola
Our Supporters
Institutional Funders:
Axe-Houghton Foundation; Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation & P/Arts Program; Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust; Faro Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation; Lotos Foundation; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Mental Insight Foundation; Revada Foundation of the Logan Family; Anthony A. Sirna Foundation; Shubert Foundation
Government Funders:
The National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature); New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and Council Members Antonio Reynoso, Rafael L. Espinal, Jr., and Stephen T. Levin; The Mayor's Office of Media & Entertainment
Corporate Donors:
American Fidelity Foundation; Broadway Stages; ConEdison; Frank Brunckhorst Co. LLC; Foster Sundry; Goldman Sachs; Henry Luce Foundation Matching Program; Kickstarter PBC; Sixpoint Brewery; WarnerMedia; Workman Publishing
INDIVIDUAL DONORS:
All Starrs
Susan & John Allain; Jeremy Blocker; Suzie Bolotin & John Rothman; Sean T. Buffington; Patrick Catullo; Steve Coats; Matthew Cowherd; Max Dana; Gita Deo; Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman; Ruben Flores/Kasia Urbaniak International; Naomi Gardner; Alice & Robin Griffiths; Jeff Griffin; Matthew Harrison; David Herskovits; Jason Kemper & Thor Perplies; Mary & Casey Kemper; Joyce & Marty Kessler; Jaime King; Maxandra & Oliver Kramer; Tamar Lusztig & Aaron Foster; Alexis & Grant Mainland; Dave Malloy; Greta & Tony Mansour; Sheldon McLeod; Carole Miller; David J. Ringer; Michael Seelbach; Andrea Risoli & Jeremy T. Smith; Lisa Van Curen; Rachel Viola
Sustainers
Anonymous; Renee & Steve Bauer; Susan Bernfield & Claude Millman; Jerome Blaine; Angela & Jacob Buchdahl; Rachel Chavkin; Jane Comfort; Noel Cyr; Susan Feldman; Lauren Glant; Frank Holozubiec; Elizabeth Mallow; Greta & Tony Mansour; Jaslynne Medina; Mercury Paint Corp.; Carin & Chris Moeder; Rashad Rahman & Tina Ting; Eric & Susan Rayman; Eliza & Jim Rossman; Mary Salter; Risa Shoup & Di Glazer; Elizabeth Sorrell & Jamie Buckner; Susan Strickler; Tracy Weller & Michael Ranson; Ashley & Shawn Woolf
Supporters
Anonymous; Mary Bruch; Michael J. Contini; Leah Day & Greg VanHorn; Bunny Dell; Daniel Emerman; Judy Ferber; Laura Turner Garrison; Dan Halsted; Sara Juli & Chris Ajemian; Amelia Kennedy; David Lieberman; Katherine Matheson; Jill Hunter Matichak; Renee McGarry; Hillary Miller & Tracy Hazas; Mark Musico; Christine O'Leary; Garrett Oliver; Meghan Pressman; Ethan Schwartz; George Sheanshang; Arun Subramarian; Isadora Tang; Casey York
Members
Anonymous (5); Morgan Baker; Katherine Barry; Kate Benson; Francis Blacklock; Heather Christian; Joel de la Fuente; MaryBeth DelGaudio; Jacque Donaldson; Jason Eagan; Freddy Edelhart; Sandra Garner; Aaron Glick; Caleb Hammons; Martin Hoffman; Rachel Karpf & Brent Reidy; Jamie Kaye-Phillips; Maria Portman Kelly; Annie & Charles Kessler; Matthew Markowski; Nana Mensah; Ian Mundorff; Padraig Murphy; Cate Owren & Zac Hall; Ariana Perez-Castells; Teresa Petersen; Heather Rush; Tara Sarath; Meredith Lynsey Schade; Kendra C Srebro; Diane Davis Steiker; Elizabeth Pickett Steinke & Frederick Steinke; Scott C. Wilson; Jay Wegman & Stephen Facey; Michael Weller
*As of November 5, 2019