John Kelly Plays Joe's Pub, Now thru 11/4

Visual artist, dancer, actor and downtown cabaret artist John Kelly will make his solo debut at Joe's Pub at The Public this fall, performing songs by Kurt Weill, Charles Aznavour, The Incredible String Band, Holcombe Waller and Carol Lipnik tonight, October 14, October 28 at 7 PM and November 4 at 9:30 PM.

At Joe's Pub, Kelly will sing in his 3-octave range, and channel his alter-ego Dargelos (brother of Dagmar Onassis), a genre-traipsing weathered, punk altar boy-a raging, orphaned middle-age sage who likes to stretch, violate, besot and embrace the song form. Kelly will also perform an aria written especially for him by composer Richard Einhorn. "All my favorite singers perform at Joe's Pub regularly," said Kelly. "I'm looking forward to inhabiting and offering a minimal, portable, but no less dramatic and enveloping experience for my audience."

Kelly's flexibility as a performing artist is stunning. Golden Globe-winning actor and director James Franco said, "[Kelly] crosses into so many worlds with quiet authority and excellence." Kelly played the lead role in Franco's film The Clerk's Tale (Spencer Reese) in 2010. Kelly has also collaborated with Laurie Anderson among other notable musicians, actors and artists. Alan Cumming has said, "John Kelly is one of my favorite performers in the whole world," while Antony Hegarty of Antony and The Johnsons calls John Kelly "one of my heroes."

Kelly has created character studies based on historic figures such as Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, John Cage, Antonin Artaud, Joni Mitchell, and Jean Cocteau. His work also includes dance theatre works, concerts and exhibitions of visual art and video at MOMA, the MIT List Visual Art Center, and Philadelphia's Institute for Contemporary Art. Watch Kelly sing Tim Buckley's "Sing A Song For You" on YouTube.

Kelly's work has received numerous awards including two Bessie Awards, two Obie Awards, an Alpert Award, an Ethyl Eichelberger Award, and an Eliot Norton Best Actor Award. Fellowships include The Guggenheim Foundation, The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, the Sundance Theatre Institute, the Rome Prize in Visual Art at the American Academy in Rome, and an Armory Artist in Residence at the Park Avenue Armory.

For more information on John Kelly, visit: www.johnkellyperformance.org

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