Guthrie Theater Presents Taylor Mac's HOLIDAY SAUCE... PANDEMIC!

The Guthrie Theater today announced it has added the Pomegranate Arts production of Taylor Mac's Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic! to its virtual holiday lineup.

The event reimagines Mac's beloved annual extravaganza Holiday Sauce - which the Los Angeles Times called "a present from the island of misfit toys ... and a Christmas miracle" - for this time of social distancing. Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic! comes on the heels of Mac's Holiday Sauce album release, which offers another opportunity for homebound audiences to experience Mac's singular artistry and approach to the holidays.

Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic! will be available live for one night only on December 12 at 6 p.m. CST and include a special virtual after-party with surprise guests. For those who cannot attend the live event, the performance will be available on demand December 14-16. Tickets are $10 per household and on sale through the Guthrie Box Office at 612.377.2224 (Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and online at guthrietheater.org.

Christmas as calamity! 2020 International Ibsen Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac and his longtime collaborators - designer Machine Dazzle, music director Matt Ray and producers Pomegranate Arts -join together to celebrate the holidays in all of their dysfunction. Holiday Sauce... Pandemic! blends music, film, burlesque and random acts of fabulousness to reframe the songs you love and the holidays you hate. There is more to the holidays than rampant capitalism and gift giving, and in Mac's world, creativity and imagination are their own spirituality. Through this virtual event, Mac reminds us of the collective power of our chosen families - a message that rings true in this distinctly bittersweet holiday season.

Mac dedicates Holiday Sauce to Mother Flawless Sabrina, Mac's drag mother, who passed away three weeks before the live show made its world premiere at New York City's Town Hall in December 2017. As a tribute to her, each institution presenting Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic! will honor a local elder who has made a significant contribution to nurturing the queer community in their city. Collectively, these elders make up a group Mac refers to as The Queens; their names will be mentioned in the show, featured on the Holiday Sauce website and amplified on social media.

The Guthrie will honor Sharon Day (Ojibwe), an artist, writer, musician, and lifelong activist in support of women, LGBTQIA+ and Indigenous peoples, as well as the life-giving force of water. Since 1990, she has served as the Executive Director of Indigenous Peoples Task Force, an organization she founded to develop and implement culturally appropriate HIV education and direct services to Minnesota's Native community.

To create Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic!, Mac joined forces with longtime creative producer Pomegranate Arts (Linda Brumbach, Founder and Director; Alisa E. Regas, Managing Director, Creative), director Jeremy Lydic, designers Machine Dazzle and Anastasia Durasova, and cinematographer Rob Kolodny. It features a full band led music director/arranger Matt Ray and including Colin Brooks, Viva DeConcini, Antoine Drye, Greg Glassman, J. Walter Hawkes, Marika Hughes, Dana Lyn, and Gary Wang; special guests Thornetta Davis, Stephanie Christi'an, and Tigger! Ferguson; and performers who make cameo appearances: Dusty Childers, Sister Rosemary Chicken, sidhe degreene, Romeo-Jay Jacinto, Glenn Marla, Travis Santell Rowland (Qween), and Timothy White Eagle.

Holiday Sauce... Pandemic! was commissioned by The International Ibsen Festival, The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and National Theatre of Oslo, who present it with additional support from the Guthrie Theater; Artpark in Lewiston, NY; ASU Gammage at Arizona State University; Berliner Festspiele; UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance; Curran in San Francisco, CA; FirstWorks/Brown Arts Initiative; Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth; Live Arts Miami; OZ Arts Nashville; Park Avenue Armory; Seattle Theatre Group; On the Boards; Stanford Live at Stanford University; Teatros del Canal in Madrid, Spain; TO Live; UtahPresents; and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.

For more information about Holiday Sauce ... Pandemic! or the Holiday Sauce album, visit www.taylormacholidaysauce.com.

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