Fresh Fruit Festival to Showcase GLBT Theatre, July 10-23

The Fourth Annual Fresh Fruit Festival, a celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) arts and culture will take over New York from Tribeca to Soho, from Chelsea to Midtown, July 10th- July 23rd.

"Diversity and creativity off the mainstream is the theme of this Festival that always everyone surprises, delights and challenges assumptions. Fresh Fruit presents all genres of art and performance expanding its boundaries as it grows," according to press notes.

The Fourth Annual Fresh Fruit Festival will kick off with Cavalcade of Fruits on July 10th. The show is an array of LGBT musical artists- featuring MC: ButtaFly Soul, Athena Reich, David Brown and Kathy Valentine accompanied by Anne Rebold. It will also showcase past, present and future Fresh Fruit performers. On July 11th Fresh Fruit will present its first major art show "Ripe Fruit" at the new Leslie/Lohman Gallery in Soho.

New this year is Outsider Dancing, an evening of dance with Sean Dorsey, artistic director of San Francisco's Fresh Meat Productions, and choreographer Chelsea Ellis.

New, too, will be a movie night to preview Queer Duck: The Movie. "The hilarious antics of our favorite Queer Duck have been highlighted on Showtime." The movie features the voices of Jim J. Bullock as Queer Duck as well as those of Tim Curry, Conan O'Brien and David Duchovny as the voice of Tiny Jesus. There will be a reception before the preview and after a Q&A with four time Emmy award winning writer and creator of Queer Duck, Mike Reiss.

Movie night's second feature will be Bright Lights/Out City with Under the Pink Carpet's Clover Honey. "This movie features the Queer haunts of NYC and the fabulous talents that haunt them with Tony Sawicki and Clover Honey of Under the Pink Carpet. The movie includes the Donnna Summer's only public statement about her alleged 'AIDS was God's punishment to Gays' remarks." It will also feature an exclusive interview with Cyndi Lauper, and remarks by Joan Collins, Rosie O'Donnell, Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Herman, Liz Smith, Eric McCormick, Kelly Ripa, Boy George, Dame Edna, Jai Rodriguez, Carson Kressley, Rod and Nicky from Avenue Q, Charles Bush, Ari Gold and many others.

Going Bananas will be presented in conjunction with Homo Comicus at the Gorham Comedy Club at with Mike Albo, Julie Goldman, Greg Walloch. It will be hosted by "Funny Gay Man" Jaffe Cohen.

On July 13, a "Two Spirit Evening" celebrates the first LGBT people on our continent with music, poetry from LGBT Native American performers and artists including Georgie Jessup, Roger Kuhn and Maurice Kenny.

Theatre will not be overlooked in Fresh Fruit. The Festival will present the world premiere of My Mother Told Me I Was Different: Voices of the Stonewall Rebellion by Carol Polcovar. The show is a docudrama based on eyewitness accounts of the Stonewall Rebellion, the rebellion that began the ongoing and continuing battle for Gay Liberation. Other theater and performance pieces include a lesbian love story taking place against the backdrop of World War II (Why Did You Make Me Wear That, Joe? by Vanda); a look at an African-American family's struggle with sex, secrets and religion (Come Back To Me by Jesse Alick); a Story of a soldier's on line romance a young woman who turns out to be a young man (To Whom It May Concern by Aurin Squire); Jen/Ed and Jen DeWalsh's Politics, Sex, and Masturbation, which takes a look at what women have been taught about sex, while other shows include Robin Cloud's look at race, identity and lesbian love and Jennifer Pawlitschek's intelligent riff on finding love in the lesbian universe (The Physics of Love).

The festival will be held in several new venues: the Slipper Room, the Leslie/Lohman Gallery, Collective: Unconscious and the Abingdon Theater Complex, and Gotham Comedy Club. Admissions vary. For more information, visit www.freshfruitfestival.com or e-mail artisticdirection@freshfruitfestival.com. For tickets, call SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or visit www.smarttix.com.

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