Live at the Lortel Announces January and February Guests

Lucille Lortel Theatre has announced the first guests of 2022 for its "Live at The Lortel" podcast series. Now in its third season, "Live at The Lortel" is hosted by Eric Ostrow and co-hosts Joy DeMichelle and John-Andrew Morrison. The program is designed to give theater makers the opportunity to share insight into their creative process and inspiration with a larger audience. These conversations dig deep into the artists' work and career, including past, present, and future projects.

This season, Live at The Lortel looks at the intersection between art and activism. We honor the work of theater artists who boldly use their public platform for philanthropy, to advance the state of theater, and to support the issues that they are passionate about. We look to explore how an artist's passion for activism and philanthropy influences their artistry on the stage.

This January and February, "Live at The Lortel" welcomes a star-studded roster of guests passionate both in their art and causes. "Live at The Lortel" will feature director Zhailon Levingston (January 10), Tony Award-winning stage and screen actress Julie Halston (January 24), boundary breaking writer and performer Taylor Mac (January 31), award-winning writer, director, and producer Tina Andrews (February 7), and costume designer Qween Jean (February 28). Additional guests for 2022 will be announced in the coming weeks.

The live interviews will take place Mondays at 7:00 PM EST, offering theater fans the opportunity to view interviews and participate in a Q&A with artists. To join the audience, please visit www.liveatthelortel.com.

Following each live interview, podcast episodes of "Live at The Lortel" will be available on numerous outlets including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Soundcloud per the below release schedule.

Zhailon Levingston

Monday, January 10 - live

Podcast release: January 14

Zhailon Levingston is a Louisiana-raised storyteller, director, and activist. He is a Board Member and Creative Director for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which he co-created, and teaches the Theatre of Change course at Columbia University. He is a Music Mentor Fellow and has done work with Idina Menzel's A Broader Way Foundation. His directing credits include: Neptune (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Museum), The Years That Went Wrong (Lark, MCC), The Exonerated (Columbia Law School), Chariot Part 2 (Soho Rep., for The Movement Theatre Company), Mother of Pearl (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center). He is the Associate Director of Primer for a Failed Superpower with Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin, and Runaways at The Public Theater with Sam Pinkleton. Most recently. he directed "Chicken and Biscuits" which premiered on Broadway this fall. Zhailon is also the resident director at "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical" on Broadway and the associate director of "Hadestown" in South Korea.

Philanthropic/Activist Causes: Broadway Advocacy Coalition

Julie Halston

Monday, January 24 - live

Podcast release: January 28

Julie Halston ( Titania/Elizabeth) was awarded the 2020 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her advocacy with The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation. Last seen co-starring in Tootsie on Broadway, she also received the Richard Seff Award for her performance in You Can't Take It with You. Other Broadway credits: Hairspray, Gypsy, Anything Goes and The Twentieth Century. A founding member of Charles Busch's theatre company, she co-starred with him in numerous productions including The Divine Sister (Drama Desk Nom), Red Scare on Sunset (Drama Desk Nom) and The Lady in Question. Television credits include Gossip Girl , The Good Fight, Almost Family and Divorce. She is reprising her role as Bitsy Von Muffling in the Sex and The City reboot, And Just Like That. Her YouTube series "Virtual Halston" became a pandemic hit with over 40 episodes.

Philanthropic/Activist Causes: The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation

Taylor Mac

Monday, January 31 - live

Podcast release: February 4

Taylor Mac (who uses "judy"-lowercase sic-as a gender pronoun) is the author of The Hang (composed by Matt Ray); Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus; A 24-Decade History of Popular Music; The Fre; Hir; The Walk Across America for Mother Earth; The Lily's Revenge; The Young Ladies Of; Red Tide Blooming; The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac; and the revues Comparison is Violence; Holiday Sauce; and The Last Two People on Earth: an Apocalyptic Vaudeville (created with Mandy Patinkin, Susan Stroman and Paul Ford) . Mac is the first American to receive the International Ibsen Award, is a MacArthur Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a Tony nominee for Best Play, and the recipient of the Kennedy Prize (with Matt Ray), the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, the Herb Alpert Award, a Drama League Award, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the Booth, two Helpmann Awards, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, two Obie's, two Bessies, and an Ethyl Eichelberger award.

Philanthropic/Activist Causes: The LGBT Asylum Task Force https://www.lgbtasylum.org/

Tina Andrews

Monday, February 7 - live

Podcast release: February 11

Tina Andrews is an international award-winning writer, director, and producer. She wrote and Executive Produced the 4-hour CBS miniseries, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal on Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved mistress for which she won the Writers Guild of America Award for "Outstanding Longform Television," and two NAACP Image Awards for "Outstanding TV Movie, Miniseries or Special" and "Outstanding Literary, Nonfiction" for her book. Andrews also wrote and Executive Produced the CBS miniseries, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and the Warner Bros. film, Why Do Fools Fall in Love. Current projects include From Selma to Sorrow about civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo killed by the Klan in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march; and is series Creator/Executive Producer of a new HBO MAX period drama, Buckingham based on her play and internationally acclaimed novel, Charlotte Sophia.

Philanthropic/Activist Causes: American Cancer Society and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

Qween Jean

Monday, February 28 - live

Podcast release: March 4

Qween Jean is a New York City based Costume Designer who has draped over 50 shows and counting. She is the founder of Black Trans Liberation and has fully committed her voice for the advocacy of marginalized communities, with an emphasis on Black Trans people. Through this work she is passionate about creating not only space, but access for unsung heroes and folks who are often overlooked, shunned and abandoned. She feels their stories are valuable and deserve recognition. In 2021 Qween was MOMA PS1's artist in residency and co-curated Memoriam and Deliverance, an installation that called awareness to the last five years of transphobic fatal violence while celebrating Black Trans leaders in the community. She was also the opening speaker for the March on Washington March on for Voting Rights.

Her shows include; Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP Theatre), One in Two (The New Group), Siblings Play (Rattlestick), Amen Corner (Shakespeare Theatre, DC), Rags Parkland (Arvs Nova), Little Shop of Horrors (Trinity Rep) , Good Grief (Vineyard Theatre), McBeth in Stride (American Repertory Theatre, Boston ), Othello (Trinity Rep), Wig Out!, Semblance (NYTW), Waiting for Godot (The New Group), The Loophole (The Public), Playboy of the West Indies, A Doll's House and the highly acclaimed What to Send Up, When it Goes Down by Aleshea Harris (BAM & Playwrights Horizons).

Philanthropic/Activist Causes: Black Trans Liberation