HERE To Honor Resident Artist Taylor Mac At BLOOM, HERE's 2019 Spring Gala

On May 13, the OBIE-winning HERE will honor MacArthur fellow Taylor Mac and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation ArtsProgram at BLOOM, HERE's annual spring gala. The evening celebrates Mac, a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, performance artist, director and producer and "critical darling of the New York scene" (New York Magazine) who also has been HERE's resident playwright since 2016. Mac's current Broadway debut, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, was commissioned by HERE and written during Mac's residency.

In honoring the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Arts Program, HERE recognizes their leadership in the field, as they continue to provide integral funding to both artists like Taylor Mac and performing arts organizations that serve communities around the country.

The evening's program will be emceed by legendary feminist performer Julie Atlas Muz and will include performances by singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, interdisciplinary artist Machine Dazzle & musician Viva DeConcini, drag queen Martha Graham Cracker, puppetry artists Spencer Lott & Maiko Kikuchi, members of Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative, and Brooklyn United Marching Band. BLOOM features environmental design by Machine Dazzle and lighting design by Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa.

The BLOOM Gala will take place at City Winery (155 Varick Street, Manhattan) at 6:00pm on Monday, May 13th, with the BASH Party to follow at 8:30pm. Individual tickets for the evening, which includes a seated dinner, start at $600 with tables available starting at $5,000. Bash Party Tickets are available for $100 each or $150 for a pair. All tickets can be purchased online at here.org, by calling 212.647.0202 ext. 326 or by emailing brenna@here.org.

Taylor Mac (who uses "judy"-lowercase sic-as a gender pronoun) is a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, performance artist, director and producer. Plays include: Gary, A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Broadway), A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (shown in its 24-hour entirety at St. Ann's Warehouse, The Curran Theater, the Ace Theater, the Melbourne Festival, upcoming at the Berliner Festspiele), Hir (Magic Theater, Playwrights Horizon, Steppenwolf and over sixty professional productions), The Walk Across America for Mother Earth (La Mama with the Talking Band), The Lily's Revenge (HERE Arts Center, Magic Theater, American Repertory Theater), The Young Ladies Of (HERE Arts Center, Playmakers Repertory, Manchester's Library Theater), Red Tide Blooming (PS 122), and The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac (highlights include: The Public Theater, The Sydney Opera House, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival).

Mac, aside from acting in much of judy's own work, sometimes plays with others. Most notably: Shen Teh/Shui Ta in The Foundry Theater's production of Good Person of Szechwan, in the City Center's Encores production of Gone Missing, Puck/Egeus in the Classic Stage Company's A Midsummer's Night Dream, and in the two-man vaudeville, The Last Two People On Earth, which judy co-created with Mandy Patinkin and director Susan Stroman.

Mac is a MacArthur Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama and the recipient of multiple awards including the Kennedy Prize, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, the Herb Alpert in Theater, The Booth Award, the Peter Zeisler Memorial Award, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, two Bessies, two Obies, two Helpmann's, and an Ethyl Eichelberger Award. An alumnus of New Dramatists, judy is currently the resident playwright at HERE.

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties. The Arts Program of DDCF focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. For more information, please visit www.ddcf.org.

The OBIE-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director), named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art.

HERE's standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, James Scruggs' Disposable Men, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda, and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others.

HERE is also recognized nationally and internationally for the annual PROTOTYPE festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre, co-founded and co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects. Founded in 2013, PROTOTYPE commissions, develops, produces, and presents new 21st century works of contemporary opera and music-theater.

Since its founding in 1993, HERE and the artists it has supported have received 18 Obies, 2 Bessies, 5 Drama Desk Nominations, 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 4 Doris Duke Awards, and 2 MacArthur Fellowships.

BLOOM - HERE's 2019 Spring Gala

Tickets: Tables start at $5,000. Individual tickets start at $600. Party Tickets are $100/each or two for $150.

Where: City Winery, 155 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013

When: Monday, May 13, 2019 at 6pm. Party to follow at 8:30pm.

Purchase: here.org; 212.647.0202 ext. 326; brenna@here.org.

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