Naked at 90 at Theatre 71

At 90, Jan Gero still feels like an outsider. He's an anxious, insecure man, isolating himself with the fears and neuroses that he’s examined for more than a decade in a weekly monologue, the Compulsive New Yorker, which airs on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN).

Over the last 50 years he's chronicled his life in journals, which are bound and packed into the bookshelves of his Upper West Side apartment. Much of his reflection is rooted in the defining moment of his life, when as an eight year old in Copenhagen during World War II, he was separated from his mother for five years.

After those decades of private self-examination, he's doing the unthinkable: He's sharing it all — his angst and unease, as well as his passions and vulnerabilities — with a live audience.

In Naked, Jan confronts those fears and neuroses in his idiosyncratic and revelatory monologue. Naked at 90 is a culmination of those 50 years of honing his craft as an artist and coming to terms with his disconnect with the world around him. He’s confronting his most atavistic fears — that he will be rejected for both his art and his personhood. 

Naked at 90 will be presented May 30 at 7 p.m. at Theatre 71, 152 W. 71st Street, New York, NY.