F*CK MY LIFE Plays Wild Project Theatre, 7/14

F*ck My Life (FML) tells the riveting backstory and failure of Xandra Ibarra's burlesque persona La Chica Boom. Using evocative sound montage, critical political imagery, and fast paced physical theatrics, FML chronicles Ibarra's early ambition to use burlesque "spictacles" to undermine her audience's Mexiphobic gaze. With astute direction from EVan Johnson, Ibarra reveals not only her tasseled pasties, as is traditional in burlesque, but also her incompatible relationship with her interracial audience and the emotional toll that her perverse-cum-filled-minstrel-spectacles have had over the past ten years of her burlesque life. By juxtaposing her story with the rumored death of Hollywood's "Mexican Spitfire" Lupe Velez, who purportedly died with her head in the toilet, La Chica Boom foreshadows the destiny of her burlesque persona. While Ibarra doesn't resolve the show with death as Lupe did, she proposes to live the afterlife of La Chica Boom as a cockroach: reviled and untamable.

Writer/Performer: Xandra Ibarra is an Oakland based performance artist, lecturer and ecdysiast from the El Paso/Juarez border. Ibarra and her burlesque persona, La Chica Boom, have been featured in venues such as Museo Tamayo (Mexico), Joe's Pub (NYC), The Yerba Buena Arts Museum (SF), The Burlesque Hall of Fame (LV), The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (CA), and The National Queer Arts Festival (SF) to name a few. Recent residencies include Guillermo Gomez-Pena's Performance Art Intensive, CounterPULSE and Atlantic Center for the Arts as curated by Coco Fusco. Her work has been profiled by In Dance Journal, GLQ, SF Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, Telemundo, Seattle Gay News, Art Practical, and Curve Magazine. www.lachicaboom.com

Director: EVan Johnson is a San Francisco based actor, playwright and director. His creative interests are devised in queer performance, clowning and physical theatre. Recent credits include the World Premiere of his original queer solo play "Pansy" for The New Conservatory Theatre Center (2013) and Xandra Ibarra's "Fuck My Life" (director) for CounterPULSE's Artist-In-Residence Program (2012). Other original solo work includes "Mirror/Mirror" (performer) for Too Much! A Queer Performance Marathon (2010) and "Don't Feel: The Death of Dahmer" (writer/performer) which was produced by 11.11 Art Group (2010) at Mama Calizo's Voice Factory. "Don't Feel.." was featured in the SF Bay Guardian's year-end review as one of the best small theatre productions of 2010. Evan's been nominated for a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award (2011, Best Actor in a Drama for NCTC's "Treefall") and is a graduate of The Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre (2006). Evan's drag character, Martha T. Lipton (the failed actress) also appears regularly in local nightclubs, singing show tunes and signing headshots for fans. http://www.evanjohnsonperformance.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.