RYAN RAFTERY: MOTHER OF THE YEAR is Coming to Joe's Pub in March

"The devil works hard, but Kris Jenner works harder." Ryan Raftery returns to Joe's Pub for his seventh consecutive run, premiering his new celebrity biomusical comedy MOTHER OF THE YEAR. Raftery's latest piece is an irreverent fable about the woman behind arguably the world's most famous and oddly enduring brand...The Kardashians.

Ryan Raftery: MOTHER OF THE YEAR opens Wednesday, March 15, and runs on varying dates through Sunday, March 26. Tickets are $55 and more details are available online, over the phone (212-967-7555) and in-person at The Public Theater's box office (425 Lafayette, NYC).

Ryan Raftery returns to Joe's Pub with his latest celebrity biomusical - this time about America's most famous mom! "Mother of the Year" finds Kris Jenner desperate for more kids to schill, so she travels to Laos for an experimental fertility treatment. Something goes wrong and she's afflicted with temporary amnesia and is forced to stay in Laos to be re-educated about the role she's played in creating "The Kardashians" as we know it. Then, she finds out that the experiment actually worked and she's pregnant at 67 with a girl! However, now that she has new clarity on her parenting choices, she considers whether or not she wants to continue the pregnancy. But UH OH! Roe v Wade has been overturned during her stay abroad, which galvanizes the "New Kris" into using her family's 1.2 billion followers to do something good for women everywhere and help get the law reinstated. And it's a musical!!!

"This is the seventh celebrity biomusical I've written," explains Raftery. "They all bleed from one into the next and with Kris Jenner, it all comes full circle. My first show was about Anna Wintour and her decision to put Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on the cover of Vogue and the backlash it caused on social media. 'Mother of the Year,' while I take vast dramatic license for comedic effect, pulls back the curtain on the woman who made that cover happen."

While Raftery decided early on to address abortion rights in the show, the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade inspired his idea to turn the show into a "Christmas Carol"-type redemption story.

"Kris the Queenmaker, the brand generator and brilliant marketing mind who is right up there with Steve Jobs, David Ogilvy and Walt Disney when it comes to how she has influenced the way we see the world," Raftery says. "Writing a show where Kris is so desperate to 'keep up' with the public's frenzied interest in her family that she subjects herself to an experimental fertility treatment made perfect sense to me."

The stageplay and parody lyrics are written and performed by Raftery, set to songs by artists as varied as Lady Gaga. Miley Cyrus, Alan Menken and Sara Bareilles. Story by Ryan Raftery & Jay Turton. Stage direction is by Jay Turton, musical direction by Brandon James Gwinn, makeup by Andrew Schoomaker and wig design by Isaac Davidson. Photo of Ryan Raftery in character as Kris Jenner by Brendan Burke.

Ryan Raftery has appeared on television in Ugly Betty, What I Like About You, Malcolm in the Middle and, most memorably, on Law and Order: SVU, where he warmed hearts all across America as Dennis Faber, the lovable Amish teenager with measles. He has written 10 shows, including the solo shows "Ryan Raftery & Friends: A Solo Act" and "Ryan Raftery's It Gets Worse." His celebrity bio-musicals based on the lives of Anna Wintour, Andy Cohen, Martha Stewart, Calvin Klein, Ivanka Trump and Andy Warhol have sold out from coast to coast and have garnered praise in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine and many others.

TICKETS:

ONLINE at joespub.com / PHONE, 10 AM-7:00 PM, DAILY 212-967-7555

IN PERSON The Public Theater Box Office, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC (Opens daily at 2 PM)

NOTE There is a $12 food / two (2) drink minimum per person per show, unless otherwise noted.

JOE'S PUB, a program of The Public Theater, was named for Public Theater founder Joseph Papp. Since it opened in 1998, Joe's Pub has played a vital role in The Public's mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space to perform and develop new work. Joe's Pub presents the best in live music and performance nightly, continuing its commitment to diversity, production values, community, and artistic freedom. The organization also offers opportunities like New York Voices, an artist commissioning program that helps musicians develop original live performance projects; Joe's Pub Working Group, an artist development initiative; The Vanguard Award & Residency, a yearlong series that celebrates the career of a prolific and influential artist and has honored Nona Hendryx, Judy Collins, and Laurie Anderson; and nationwide programming partnerships. Currently commissioned artists include Alicia Hall Moran, Daniel J. Watts, Haig Papazian, Samora Pinderhughes, Sunny Jain, and Yacine Boulares. Joe's Pub Working Group's 2021-2022 cohort includes Jaime Lozano, Kirsten Maxwell, Roopa Mahadevan, Salty Brine, and Sarah Elizabeth Charles. With its intimate atmosphere and superior acoustics, Joe's Pub presents artists from all over the world as part of The Public's programming downtown at its Astor Place home, hosting approximately 800 shows and serving over 100,000 audience members annually. New York Voices is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

THE PUBLIC continues the work of its visionary founder Joe Papp as a civic institution engaging, both on-stage and off, with some of the most important ideas and social issues of today. Conceived over 60 years ago as one of the nation's first nonprofit theaters, The Public has long operated on the principles that theater is an essential cultural force and that art and culture belong to everyone. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public's wide breadth of programming includes an annual season of new work at its landmark home at Astor Place, Free Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the Mobile Unit touring throughout New York City's five boroughs, Public Forum, Under the Radar, Public Lab, Public Works, Public Shakespeare Initiative, and Joe's Pub. Since premiering HAIR in 1967, The Public continues to create the canon of American Theater and is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award- winning musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Girl From the North Country. Their programs and productions can also be seen regionally across the country and around the world. The Public has received 59 Tony Awards, 184 Obie Awards, 55 Drama Desk Awards, 58 Lortel Awards, 34 Outer Critic Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, 56 AUDELCO Awards, 6 Antonyo Awards, and 6 Pulitzer Prizes. publictheater.org

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