c/o Morgan Jenness
Abrams Artists Agency
275 Seventh Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10001
(646) 461-9384
Agent Email:
Morgan.Jenness@abramsart.com
Taylor Mac is a theatre artist working in the genre of pastiche. This is a fancy way of saying he does a lot of different things. He's a playwright, a librettist, an actor, a director, performance artists, a cloon (a female clown), and is learning how to compose music on his banjo. Taylor writes plays for others, solo-plays for himself, and epic extravaganza's (where he is one of many performers). Vintage Press, New York Theatre Review, New York Theatre Experience have published his plays, he has been named one of New York's best by the Village Voice, Time Out, and The New York Press and is the recipient of The Edinburgh Festival's Herald Angel Award, a GLAAD Media Award Nomination, three Brighton Best of Festival awards, PS 122's Ethyl Eichelberger award, a New York State Council of The Arts Grant, an Edward Albee Foundation Residency, The Franklin Furnace Grant, a Peter S. Reed Grant, The Ensemble Studio Theatre's New Voices Fellowship in playwriting, A Mabou Mines Suite (with collaborator Elizabeth Swados) and is currently a HERE Arts Center Resident Artist.
THE YOUNG LADIES OF
Full-Length musical dramedy/90 minutes
1M or 1F or 1FtoM or 1MtoF -- Taylor Mac has first refusal of role;
Single Set
In 1968, 2nd Lt. Robert Mac Bowyer (Taylor's father), while stationed in Vietnam, placed an ad asking "young ladies" to write him. Thousands replied. Thirty years after his death, Taylor uses the letters and his own text and songs to create a conversation intermingling patriarchy, war, romance, and fatherhood. By juxtaposing his Texan father's army life in 1960's Vietnam with his own life as a New York City drag/pastiche artist, the work bridges the gap between masculinity and femininity, fathers and sons, and red and blue states.
Developed at The Battersea Arts Center in London and Performance Space 122 and Dixon Place in New York. Premiered at the HERE Arts Center, New York with a 2008 remounting. Subsequent productions at Stockholm's Sedra Teatern, and upcoming productions at Chapel Hill's PlayMaker's Repertory, Manchester's Queer Up North, and London's Battersea Arts Center.
"Stunning". 5 Stars -- Time Out NY
"Mac attacks the familiar with such brash originality that the show dazzles. He creates a sublime tapestry." -- The New York Times
"Taylor Mac's deeply inspiring Young Ladies Of is a beautiful play." -- New York Press
Critic's Pick -- New York Magazine
RED TIDE BLOOMING
Full-Length musical comedy (in the genre of Ridiculous)/100 minutes
Cast size and genders: open (premiere production performed with a cast of 12 of at least three genders)
Single Set; Puppets
In this musical celebration of freakhood, classic Mermaid Parade antics swim alongside a collective creative visualization of Armageddon in the murky waters of gentrification and cultural homogenization.
A hermaphrodite sea creature goes on a quest to destroy the Collective Conscious and free the freaks from, "The dwindling down to same."
Commissioned by Performance Space 122 as part of their first-ever Ethyl Eichelberger Award. Premiered at PS 122.
"Quite entertaining" -- The New York Times
"If you're in search and/or in need of authentically edgy, exhilarating, and fearless musical theatre that can liberate the form from hidebound traditions and make it dangerous and relevant, then Taylor Mac's extraordinary new extravaganza Red Tide Blooming is the show you've been waiting for."-- nytheater.com
THE BE(A)ST OF TAYLOR MAC
Full-length play/performance art cabaret/subversive jukebox musical of original songs and text/90 minutes
One performer -- Taylor Mac
No set but lots of costumes and a giant suitcase
A flamboyant chameleon of words, music, and sociopolitical tirades, visual and vocal phenomenon Mac emplys gender-bending surrealism to explore the human condition and challenge the contemporary culture of fear. Obie Award winner David Drake (The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me) directs.
The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac has played over 40 theatres including: The Sydney Opera House, New York's Public Theater, London's Soho Theatre, Stockholm's Sodra Teatern, Dublin's Project Arts Center, Portland's Time Based Arts Festival, Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival and The Spoleto Festival. It made its premiere at Joe's Pub in New York.
5 stars -- " Quite the most distinctive and brilliant performer I've witnessed in ages." -- The Scotsman
"An unflinching witness to a host of society's ills...linked together by a gentle impassioned humanity and a wry humor that can have you helpless with laughter, then overcome by an urge to weep -- and ultimately left thinking and wanting to make life better." -- The Herald
"(Taylor Mac) is one of the most jaw-dropping things on the (Edinburgh) fringe this year. He is a Pierrot figure for the modern age. -- The (UK) Daily Telegraph
PEACE
Co-written with Rachel Chavkin
One-act adaptation (with songs) of the Aristophanes play of the same name/30 minutes
2M, 2F, 1Beetle
Single Set
War has destroyed the land and a 75 yr. old man and his two 12 yr. old daughters are counting on their last chance of escape: a DUNG BEETLE (fed only pure, organic fecal seed) that will fly them to heaven to ask the gods for help.
THE HOLY VIRGIN MARY OF OUR TIME
Lyrics and book by Taylor Mac; Music by Edward Ficklin
One-act musical comedy/20 minutes
2M, 1F
Single Set
Based on true events surrounding the "Sensation" art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virigin Mary" elephant dung controversy. Carravagio's "Death of Mary" joins forces with Guadalupe Mary to introduce the newest art piece depicting the godly bride.
Created at New Dramatists in the Composer/Librettist Studio.
MAURIZIO POLLINI
One-act dramedy/40 minutes
3M, 4F
Single Set
In this play about parenting three scenes happen simultaneously: an Upper East side mother and her "vaginal activists" (and 10-month pregnant) daughter get their monthly pedicures; a Puerto Rican pedicurist wants to take her baby to see a piano concert in Carnegie Hall; and a past-his-prime Pritzker-winning architect, his male "assistant", and his estranged heterosexual son play golf.
Premiered by Blue Roses Theater Company. Directed by Gareth Hendee
OKAY
Ensemble or solo dramedy/50 minutes
3M and 4F, or 1M, or 1F
Single Set
Inspired by (not based on) a true story "Okay" tells the story of a teenage girl giving birth in a bathroom stall during her senior prom. Set in May of 2003, the play is about the beginning of the end of the American empire.
Premiered at The HERE Arts Center, New York.
THE LEVEE
One-act drama/10 minutes
1M, 1F
Single Set
After a miscarriage, a couple chooses to discontinue their attempts to have a baby.
Premiered in Chashama's Oasis Festival with subsequent productions at Vital Theater and Vox Humana (LA)
A CREVICE
An absurdist farce/40 minutes
3M, 3F
Single set
A 90-year-old Malthusian pediatrician and his ever-devoted nurse are caught in the middle of a cataclysmic event, which prompts the pre-mature births of hundreds of babies.
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page was last updated
04/23/2008
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