Reverend Billy Performs at CalArts Theatre, 10/21

Highlighting the Alpert Award in the Arts, REDCAT presents 2010 Alpert Award in Theater-winner Billy Talen, who will take to the pulpit as Reverend Billy, a "pop-gnostic Jimmy Swaggart," to deliver an electrifying and poignant Obie Award-winning performance backed by his joyous 25-voice Life After Shopping Gospel Choir and directed by Savitri D. Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir will perform at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 8:30 pm.

In the spirit of a gospel revival that The New York Times heralds, "It's an Art. It's an Act. It's almost a Religion," Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir draw upon their "retail interventions," staged inside Wal-Marts and Starbucks, to transform consumer nightmares and biblical narratives into an inspirational showdown. Appropriating the style of some of America's most reactionary icons, Reverend Billy proselytizes with supreme power and delivers the tenets of his Church of Stop Shopping with such infectious passion the audience's experience of shopping may never be the same.

This one night theatrical event at REDCAT launches The Earth-a-llujah Earth-a-llujah Revival!--a tour of California made possible by the 2010 Alpert Award for Theater, awarded to Savitri D and Billy Talen. Additional tour dates include Altadena's Farnsworth Park Amphitheater on Saturday, October 23; Santa Cruz's Rio Theater on Sunday Oct 24; and San Francisco's Victoria Theater on Monday Oct 25. Click here for more information on the tour.

Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir performs at REDCAT on Thursday October 21, 2010. Curtain for performance is 8:30 pm. All tickets are $12 general admission and are available at www.redcat.org or by calling 213 237-2800. REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

The performance at REDCAT is funded in part with generous support from The Herb Alpert Foundation. The Alpert Award in the Arts, a fellowship program that supports innovative practitioners in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theater and visual arts, is administered by CalArts on behalf of The Herb Alpert Foundation.

For high resolution and web resolution images, additional information, media and interview requests, please contact Diana Wyenn at 213 237-2873 or dwyenn@calarts.edu.