The Civilians' 'Let Me Ascertain You' Series to Continue at Joe's Pub with HORMONES

Award-winning theater company The Civilians presents its popular cabaret series, Let Me Ascertain You, at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater on Monday, February 13, 2017, at 7:30 pm.

Tickets are $15 and available at online at joespub.org or at The Public Theater box office, 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.

The theme of the interview-based cabaret is "Hormones," and it is curated by Civilians R&D Group members Chris Tyler, Simone Wolff and Kit Yan. Civilians Field Research Team members conducted interviews for the cabaret, focusing on three types of hormone-users: those undergoing gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy, those on birth control and those who take performance enhancers.

The evening will feature a mix of monologues and original music, all based on interviews conducted in the last eight weeks. Composers include Mal Blum and Dana Aliyah Levinson. Performers include Cecilia Gentili, Jax Jackson, Cristina Pitter and Jes Tom, and more to be announced.

Here's how the creative team describes their investigation: "The curve of a bicep, a breast, a chest hair: geometry of the body made uniquely possible by sex hormones. Whether manufactured in the body or the lab, these substances transform our bodies inside and out. Hormones can be magical, alchemical: pills allow us to control our fertility, shots help us affirm our genders, a smear of gel boosts our performance in (and out of) the bedroom. But like any substance, access and quality is not evenly distributed. Join us as we both celebrate and interrogate the roles hormones play in our lives, loves and bodies."

ABOUT THE CURATORS:

Chris Tyler is a performing artist whose work has been called "equal parts hilarious and chilling" (Fusion), "precise-yet-butchered" (Out Magazine) and "so cute" (Taylor Swift). AB: Brown University. Follow him @NOTCHRISTYLER.

Simone Wolff is a poet, editor, and essayist. They hold a bachelor degree from Barnard College and an MFA in poetry from Vanderbilt University. Their writing can be found in places like Mask Magazine, Leste Erotic Fanzine, and Bookslut, to name a few. They have been on hormones of one sort or another since they were 14 years old.

Kit Yan is an award-winning New York based spoken word artist raised in Hawaii and living in Brooklyn. Kit's poetry has been reviewed in New York, Bitch, Curve, and Hyphen magazines and he has toured internationally with Sister Spit, The Trans* Roadshow, and Good Asian

Drivers. He has been recognized by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Babson College for his contributions in activism, literary arts, and theater.

The Civilians generates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present. Recent successes include The Undertaking presented at BAM Next Wave and Théâtre de la Ville in Paris as part of the Brooklyn-Paris Exchange, Rimbaud in New York, the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award nominated Pretty Filthy, Mr. Burns a Post-Electric Play at Playwrights Horizons (which is one of the most produced plays in the country), and The Great Immensity at The Public Theater. The Civilians was the first theater company chosen as Artist-in- Residence of Met Museum Presents at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2014-2015. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie award-winning company has been presented at numerous theaters in New York, including BAM, Vineyard Theatre, Barrow Street Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and The Public Theater; nationally at Center Theatre Group, the TED Conference, HBO's US Comedy Festival, A.R.T., Actors Theatre of Louisville, and more. Works by the company have toured extensively to arts presenters and festivals with presentations in over 40 cities nationally and internationally.

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