AFTERGLOW AT OBERON Series At A.R.T. On Sale Now

American Repertory Theater at Harvard University (A.R.T.), under the leadership of Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Executive Producer Diane Borger, and Afterglow Festival are pleased to announce that tickets are now on sale performances in Afterglow @ OBERON. Featuring playwrights, cabaret performers, and solo artists, the series is curated by Quinn Cox, founder of Provincetown's annual Afterglow Festival. Past performers in the series, formerly known as Glowberon, include Joey Arias, Erin Markey, Johnny Blazes, and Lady Bunny.

Tickets are $25 and currently available by phone at 617.547.8300, online at americanrepertorytheater.org/AfterglowAtOBERON, and in person at the Loeb Drama Center Ticket Services Office (64 Brattle Street, Cambridge). Discounts are available to A.R.T. Members and Subscribers, as well as students. Doors open at 7:30PM; shows begin at 8PM.

OBERON is located at 2 Arrow Street at the corner of Mass Ave. in Harvard Square, Cambridge.

AFTERGLOW @ OBERON 2018/19 LINE-UP

October 11, 2018 at 8PM: Tori Scott: Tori Scott IS #THIRSTY

November 15, 2018 at 8PM: TAJA LINDLEY: THE BAG LADY MANIFESTA

January 17, 2019 at 8PM: Dan Fishback: Dan Fishback ALONE!

February 21, 2019 at 8PM: THE ILLUSTRIOUS BLACKS: HYPERBOLIC!

March 14, 2019 at 8PM: THE BEARDED LADIES CABARET: John Jarboe AS MX. ROGERS IN A MUSICAL HEALING RITUAL FOR ADULTS: YOU CAN NEVER GO DOWN THE DRAIN

April 18, 2019 at 8PM: SVEN RATZKE: AMSTERDAM TO MARS

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Tori Scott: Tori Scott IS #THIRSTY

October 11, 2018 at 8PM

Tori Scott is #Thirsty is a shameless musical journey of slurred autobiographical stories (and songs written by other people). Join this "soul-baring singer and sharp comedian" (Huffington Post) direct from sold-out performances at The Public Theater in New York and London's Live at Zedel as she celebrates poor life choices and an unconditional love of vodka to the music of Aretha Franklin, Judy Garland, Miley Cyrus, and more. Hailed as "the Bette Midler of the New Millennium" by Provincetown Magazine, Broadway World describes Scott as "the sound of someone who's not afraid to show you just how human she is, while her super-human pipes blow you away." The vocals are legit, the thirst is real, and the stories are, tragically, all true. "«««««« Utterly shameless...you'll be thirsty for more," says West End Wilma.

Tori Scott is a singer, actress, and comedian who has been named a Top 10 Cabaret Performer by Time Out New York. She has graced the stage of Joe's Pub at The Public Theater for the past five years and has toured her solo shows to London, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Provincetown, and several cruise liners entertaining thousands of shirtless gay men out at sea. On television, she's counted to 20 as a singing garbage woman on Sesame Street and dubbed the vocals of a singing hooker on HBO's Cathouse: The Musical. Her debut album Plan B! was recorded live at Joe's Pub and was released on Chicken Ranch Records in December of 2017.

• TAJA LINDLEY: THE BAG LADY MANIFESTA

November 15, 2018 at 8PM

In a world that treats Black life as if it's disposable, The Bag Lady is an urgent reckoning and revelation. She is the accumulation of discarded lives and abandoned histories reeking havoc on the amnesia, the forgetting, the erasure, and the silencing. Remembering is the responsibility of the living. Are you doing your work? Because an unacknowledged history produces ghosts.

Performed by Taja Lindley and directed by Tanisha Christie, The Bag Lady Manifesta features an immersive installation of memory followed by a participatory performance ritual where audiences are invited to (re)consider what to let go of, and what to remember-individually and collectively. Through dynamic movement, burlesque, text, soundscapes, ritual, and projection Lindley adorns and activates her Black, queer, female body with trash bags to traverse the dumping grounds and shadow side(s) of herself, the audience, and the United States.

This work is inspired by previous iterations of Lindley's Bag Lady work, including This Ain't A Eulogy: A Ritual for Re-Membering, and was presented as the culmination of Lindley's residency at Dixon Place. TajaLindley.com

• Dan Fishback: Dan Fishback ALONE!

January 17, 2019 at 8PM

Playwright Dan Fishback returns to his performing songwriter roots in Dan Fishback Alone!, a concert with no collaborators, and therefore no emailing. Before building a life in theater, Fishback was known in the East Village's anti-folk scene for his mousy voice, wordy songs, and queer politics. After developing a string of ambitious musicals and a series of queer community performance festivals, Fishback is performing Dan Fishback Alone! to escape the manic frenzy of coordination. Fishback's repertoire of queer desire and disaster includes work from his own solo albums, his band Cheese On Bread, and his musicals, including The Material World and works-in-progress Rubble Rubble and Water Signs.

Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical The Material World was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play You Will Experience Silence was called "sassier and more fun than Angels in America" by The Village Voice. In 2017, a reading of his play Rubble Rubble at the American Jewish Historical Society was canceled over his advocacy for Palestinian human rights. The backlash in support of Fishback was covered by The New York Times, and the reading was rescheduled at New World Stages on the heels of a successful crowdfunding campaign. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread, which just released The One Who Wanted More, their first album in a decade. Cheese On Bread's music video "Bad Friend" was directed by filmmaker Stephen Winter and features Justin Vivian Bond. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council.

• THE ILLUSTRIOUS BLACKS: HYPERBOLIC!

February 21, 2019 at 8PM

The Illustrious Blacks have arrived to save the world one beat at a time! Once upon a time in a galaxy not far away, there lived two kings. Each was the ruler of his own deliciously glorious planet. The first king, Manchildblack, was well known throughout the cosmos for his ethereal vocals, celestial sonics, and earthy musical messages. The other king, Monstah Black, was a star in the solar system for his gravity defying performances, gender-bending fashions, and spacey disposition. One magical night, an inexplicable ultra-magnetic pull forced the two planets to collide. A technicolored explosion occurred, turning night into day, with a feast of aural and visual delights. It was then that the universe was changed forever. Manchildblack and Monstah Black united and became The Illustrious Blacks!

The acclaimed duo fuse music, dance, theater & fashion as the main ingredients to expand minds, shake bootys, and encourage all to be bold, be brave, and be you! #LiveTheHypeLife

• THE BEARDED LADIES CABARET: John Jarboe AS MX. ROGERS IN A MUSICAL HEALING RITUAL FOR ADULTS: YOU CAN NEVER GO DOWN THE DRAIN

March 14, 2019 at 8PM

Mr. Rogers always said: no matter how bad things are "you can never go down the drain." Using and abusing iconic songs from the program, Philadelphia's Bearded Ladies Cabaret put this idea to the test. In this performance, expect a goldfish funeral, gay romps into the land of make-believe, and some earnest questions about irony.

Directed by Sui Holum, musical arrangements by Heath Allen, costumes and set by Rebecca Kanach, lighting by Oona Curley, and dramaturgy by Sally Ollove.

• SVEN RATZKE: AMSTERDAM TO MARS

April 18, 2019 at 8PM

The supernova of European cabaret, Sven Ratzke is back to allure you deep into the night with his signature show, Amsterdam to Mars. Prepare to meet pimps, lovers, angels, and devils as Ratzke takes you back to his cabaret roots in this intimate performance. Armed only with his sharp wit, killer arrangements and masterful storytelling, Amsterdam to Mars lets Ratzke unleash on songs from the likes of Brecht, Bowie, Weill, and Wainwright in a dynamic and impromptu evening by this acclaimed artist described aptly as being "unique, bizarre, ultra-extravagant in style and flavor, supremely talented and bitingly hilarious" by The Advertiser.

Following the success of his international hit STARMAN, this Dutch/German transgressive sensation and Helpmann Award nominee comes to OBERON after continued sold out shows in some of the world's finest festivals and theaters including Lincoln Center in New York, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Berliner Ensemble in Berlin.

ABOUT AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University is a leading force in the American theater, producing groundbreaking work in Cambridge and beyond. A.R.T. was founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, who served as Artistic Director until 2002, when he was succeeded by Robert Woodruff. Diane Paulus began her tenure as Artistic Director in 2008. Under the leadership of Paulus as the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director and Executive Producer Diane Borger, A.R.T. seeks to expand the boundaries of theater by programming events that immerse audiences in transformative theatrical experiences.

Throughout its history, A.R.T. has been honored with many distinguished awards including the Tony Award for Best New Play for All the Way (2014); consecutive Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical for Pippin (2013) and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (2012), both of which Paulus directed, and sixteen other Tony Awards since 2012; a Pulitzer Prize; a Jujamcyn Prize for outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent; the Tony Award for Best Regional Theater; and numerous Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards.

A.R.T. collaborates with artists around the world to develop and create work in new ways. It is currently engaged in a number of multi-year projects, including a collaboration with Harvard's Center for the Environment that will result in the development of new work over several years. Under Paulus' leadership, the A.R.T.'s club theater, OBERON, has been an incubator for local and emerging artists and has attracted national attention for its innovative programming and business models.

As the professional theater on the campus of Harvard University, A.R.T. catalyzes discourse, interdisciplinary collaboration, and creative exchange among a wide range of academic departments, institutions, students, and faculty members, acting as a conduit between its community of artists and the university. A.R.T. mentors students in the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club working at the Loeb Drama Center and OBERON, and plays a central role in Harvard's undergraduate Theater, Dance & Media concentration, teaching courses in directing, dramatic literature, acting, voice, design, and dramaturgy.

Dedicated to making great theater accessible, A.R.T. actively engages more than 5,000 community members and local students annually in project-based partnerships, workshops, conversations with
artists, and other enrichment activities both at the theater and across the Greater Boston area.

Through all of these initiatives, A.R.T. is dedicated to producing world-class performances in which the audience is central to the theatrical experience.

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