D'Lo to Headline Dixon Place's HOT Festival Next Month

Dixon Place presents the 26th Annual HOT! Festival, the NYC annual celebration of LGBTQ culture. Headlining the festival is D'Lo's solo work TO T, OR NOT TO T, which begins performances on Friday, July 7th at 7:30 PM.

During this pioneering celebration of queer performance and cultures, TO T, OR NOT TO T will play six performances only - July 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, and 22nd at 7:30 PM - at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street). The HOT! Festival, which is the world's longest-running festival of its kind, is a performance destination for emerging LGBTQ talent in theatre, music, dance, puppetry and visual arts. A benchmark for other queer festivals around the globe, HOT! Festival continues its celebration this year July 5th to August 3rd.

Tickets to TO T, OR NOT TO T are $22 in advance, $25 at the door, and $15 for students and seniors. For tickets and further information, visit dixonplace.org/performances/to-t-or-not-to-t or call 866-811-4111. For information on the HOT! Festival, log on to dixonplace.org.

Transgender actor and comedian D'Lo returns to Dixon Place with his newest solo performance, TO T, OR NOT TO T, a hilariously intimate reflection on taking t(estosterone) and his experiences transitioning. Fusing spoken word, stand-up comedy, theatre, film, and music production and drawing on his journey as a transgender Sri Lankan-American, D'Lo unpacks issues of access, denial, and guilt that come with passing as a cisgender, straight, male person of color. With TO T, OR NOT TO T, D'Lo confronts his quest to embody a beautiful masculinity while simultaneously upholding his feminist politics.

D'Lo is most recognized for his TV/film credits, including co-starring in HBO's Looking as Taj, as well as roles in Amazon's Golden Globe-winning Transparent, Netflix's Sense8, and Sundance Fellow Adelina Anthony's feature length film Bruising for Besos. He is a co-producer for DisOriented Comedy, a mostly female Asian-American touring stand-up comedy showcase. Performing Girl, the documentary by Crescent Diamond based on D'Lo's life and work, won the Best Short Documentary Award at Outfest 2013. He also appears in the upcoming Issa Rae/Project Greenlight-produced Minimum Wage and his own web series, Private Dick. D'Lo has toured internationally with his full-length stand-up storytelling show D'FunQT, and his work has been published in various anthologies and academic journals, including Hip Hop and South Asia America and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. His writing workshop series, "Coming Out, Coming Home," provides emotional and spiritual support for individuals working through the complexity of their intersecting identities by writing through their personal narratives and sharing their truths through a public reading. www.dlocokid.com

Hailed as "The best LBGTQ Theater Festival in New York" by The Village Voice, the HOT! Festival returns to Dixon Place for its 26th annual celebration of queer culture. The oldest annual festival of its kind in the world, HOT! never stales as its fresh lineup of over 100 participating artists each year continue to deliver innovative works in theatre, music, literature, visual arts, and homoeroticism for the whole family! Dixon Place is proud to carry on the tradition of the HOT! Festival, serving as both a model for numerous other queer festivals and an artistic refuge for passionate voices in the LGBTQ community. Over the years, HOT! has included such notable performers as Marga Gomez, Reno, Justin VivIan Bond, John Fleck, Kate Bornstein, Lisa Kron, Lea DeLaria, Penny Arcade, Craig Lucas, Samuel R. Delaney, Eileen Myles, and Peggy Shaw.

The Dixon Place Lounge is open before and after the show. Proceeds from the bar directly support Dixon Place's artists and mission.

Dixon Place is located at 161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), in Manhattan's Lower East Side (By subway: B/D to Grand, F to 2nd Ave, J/Z to Bowery, 6 to Spring St, M to Essex St).

This Dixon Place commission is made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the arts, NY State Council on the Arts, with the support of Gov Andrew Cuomo and the NY State Legislature and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

An artistic incubator since 1986, Dixon Place is a Bessie and Obie Award-winning non-profit institution committed to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theater, dance, music, puppetry, circus arts, literature and visual art at all stages of development. Presenting over 1000 creators a year, this local haven inspires and encourages diverse artists of all stripes and callings to take risks, generate new ideas and consummate new practices. Many artists, such as Blue Man Group, John Leguizamo, Lisa Kron, David Cale, David Drake, Deb Margolin and Reno, began their careers at DP. In addition to emerging artists, Dixon Place has been privileged to present established artists such as Mac Wellman, Holly Hughes, Justin Bond, Karen Finley, Kate Clinton and Martha Wainwright. After spawning a salon in her Paris apartment in 1985, founding Artistic Director Ellie Covan pioneered the institution in her NYC living room for 23 years. Covan was a recipient of a Bessie, a New York Dance and Performance Award and a Bax10 Award for her service to the community. Dixon Place received two Obie Awards, and an Edwin Booth Award for Excellence in Theater. Dixon Place has organically developed and expanded into a leading professional, state-of-the-art facility for artistic expression.

Photo Credit: Ryan Harper Gray