KIKI & HERB SLEIGH AT BAM to be Presented This Holiday Season

This holiday season, prepare yourself for sleighing belles, rabid yells, and tidings of joy from New York's most iconic "octogenarian" lounge act, Kiki & Herb, created and performed by Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman. A match made in-depending on who you ask-a 1934 Western Pennsylvania children's asylum, the 90s San Francisco club circuit, or the dawn of time, this relentlessly fabulous duo makes its BAM debut with a brand-new holiday spectacular. Kiki & Herb SLEIGH at BAM runs Tue, Nov 30 through Sat, Dec 4.

Whether it's an evening at Carnegie Hall, a sold-out run at Joe's Pub, or Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway, Bond and Mellman's signature cocktail of boozy banter, pop-culture shmaltz, and claws-out cultural critique has charmed this city for more than two decades. The infamous duo make their way through a number of seasonal songs, belting Christmas classics off their long-out-of-print 2000 album Do You Hear What We Hear (Tori Amos's "Crucify" as part of the "Whose Child is This?" medley, anyone?) and slinging enough cheer to choke down even this helluva holiday season.

Due to popular demand, a Wed, Dec 1 performance at 7:30 pm has been added. Kiki & Herb SLEIGH at BAM runs from Nov. 30-Dec 4. Tickets for the additional performance go on sale on Nov 4 at 12pm. For more information, visit BAM.org.

Kiki & Herb are the creation of Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman. Kiki is a washed-up, boozed-up chanteuse, with a voice that is a mixture of Tom Waits and Ethel Merman with a dash of Judy, whose middle age passed her by some time ago. Herb, her piano-battering, lifelong accompanist, provides support both musically and emotionally. As Kiki & Herb, Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman have dazzled audiences around the world for almost two decades with their ground-breaking, wildly popular cabaret shows. They have played the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, and New York's Carnegie Hall. The duo has also appeared at the Bonn Biennale (Germany), On The Boards (Seattle), the Great American Music Hall (San Francisco), and the Knitting Factory (Los Angeles). Kik & Herb have performed and toured with The Scissor Sisters and Rufus Wainwright. And the duo received an Obie Award for their show Kiki & Herb: Jesus Wept and earned a Tony Award nomination for their 2007 show Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway. Kiki & Herb have released two albums: Do You Hear What We Hear? featuring Deborah Harry, Isaac Mizrahi, Molly Ringwald, and Rufus Wainwright and Kiki and Herb Will Die For You, a live recording of their Carnegie Hall show.

Mx. Justin Vivian Bond (they/them/she) has appeared on stage (Broadway and Off-Broadway, London's West End), screen (Shortbus, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Sunset Stories), television (High Maintenance, Difficult People, The Get Down), nightclub stages (most notably a decades-long residency at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in NYC), and in concert halls worldwide (Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House). Their visual art and installations have been seen in museums and galleries in the US (Participant, Inc, The New Museum) and abroad (Vitrine, London). Their memoir Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press) won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction. They are the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, and a Tony nomination, an Ethyl Eichelberger Award, The Peter Reed Foundation Grant, The Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant for Artists, and The Art Matters Grant.

They have self-released several full-length recordings: most notably Dendrophile, and Silver Wells. As one half of the legendary punk cabaret duo Kiki & Herb they toured the world and released two CDs: Do You Hear What We Hear? and Kiki and Herb Will Die For You at Carnegie Hall. Mx. Bond has been at the forefront of Trans visibility and activism since the early 1990s. They have a master's degree in Live Art from Central Saint Martins College (London) and have taught performance composition and Live Art Installation at NYU and Bard College. Viv currently divides their time between New York City's East Village and the Hudson Valley. In December 2019, they made their debut at The Vienna Staatsoper in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth's Orlando as Orlando's child. In January 2022, they will be celebrating the release of their latest record, "Only An Octave Apart," a collaboration with the counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo released by Decca Records with a series of concerts with The New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.

Kenny Mellman (he/him/his) is one half of the Tony-nominated and Obie and Bessie winning act Kiki & Herb. His show Kenny Mellman Is Grace Jones toured the US, Australia, and the UK. His one-man musical about gay-bashing and homophobia, Say Sea Boy You Sissy Boy? was commissioned by Dixon Place. He co-wrote the musical At Least It's Pink with Michael Patrick King and Bridget Everett at Ars Nova. With Everett and Neal Medlyn, he also co-created Our Hit Parade, a downtown NY deconstruction of the pop charts that ran for four sold-out years at Joe's Pub. He was in the cast and composed the music for Good For Otto at The New Group in 2018. Mellman is in the Julie Ruin band, fronted by Kathleen Hanna, of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre fame. The band released two records and has toured extensively since 2013. He is a 2021 recipient of a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant.

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