Target Margin Theater Will Present Jean Genet-Inspired THIS IS REAL in March

The Obie award-winning Target Margin Theater will present the world premiere of This Is Real, a new theatrical production inspired by the work of Jean Genet. Created by Founding Artistic Director David Herskovits and a cohort of artists, this new work brings the transgressive spirit of Genet to life for America in 2026. This Is Real runs March 1 – April 5, 2026, with an opening set for Wednesday, March 11, 2026, at Target Margin Theater's The Doxsee (232 52nd St, Brooklyn). Tickets are now on sale at www.targetmargin.org. 

This Is Real features Genet's obsessions: power, sex, and revolution. Genet was a thief, drifter, prostitute, who wrote from prison; his work affronted convention and challenged audiences to question their own lives. His artistic descendants include Charles Ludlam, Edward Albee, Jack Smith, David Bowie, and everyone at Target Margin. Above all, Genet was committed to representing the outsiders of our world, the counterculture, misfits, losers, and criminals. These are Genet's heroes. This Is Real asks audiences to consider these degenerates anew.

“This Is Real is my small attempt to scream into the howling void of this American moment,” says Herskovits. “No one needs a theater director to tell them that the body politic is sick. Masked federal agents are shooting people in our streets today. Tomorrow looks worse. I fight where I live with the skills I have. I fight in the arts. Every day I only feel greater urgency to create ‘Degenerate Theater' in our diseased world.”

The source material for This Is Real has been pillaged from various Genet writings including his early memoirs about prison and criminal life; his first novel Our Lady of the Flowers; and all his plays from Deathwatch to The Balcony to The Screens. Genet's final work, Prisoner of Love, has become a special inspiration. These vivid stories from years among Palestinian refugees and freedom fighters in the 1970s call out across the years with special immediacy now.

“The work of Jean Genet has inspired me for decades,” adds Herskovits. “One thing I especially admire about Genet is his unflinching honesty in confronting power. He does not settle for judgments. He is never prim or pious. In this world there are and have always been powerful groups and groups of rebels. Genet knows that neither of these groups is right and neither is evil.”

The cast for This Is Real features Queerly Femmetastic, James Tigger! Ferguson, Daddy Ho, Susannah MacLeod, J Molière, Timiki Salinas, TANSY, Mari Vial-Golden, and Merlin Whitehawk.

Reflecting on the This Is Real ensemble, Herskovits says, “These burlesque performers teach me how to strut out into the arena with pride every second. All our work should swell with that bravery, and every human being should be able to own their own place, free from fear. In that sense, the company of This Is Real represents America as we have created it, here and now. We gather an ecstatically diverse group of people with every show, and we celebrate them. This is a patriotic play. Our diversity is our strength.”

The creative team for This Is Real includes scenic designer Normandy Sherwood, Costume Designer Karen Boyer, lighting designer Marika Kent and with sound design by Herskovits. Jesse Freedman serves as sound demon with production manager Emily Duncan, stage manager Sarah Orttung, assistant stage manager Ari Richardson, and assistant director Orla Patterson.

Twenty-seven performances of This Is Real will take place March 1 – April 5, 2026, at Target Margin Theater's The Doxsee, located at 232 52nd Street in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Performances take place Wednesdays – Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 3pm with additional performances on Monday March 1 and 8 at 7:30pm. Tickets, which start at $30, can be purchased at www.targetmargin.org. Standard ticketing fees apply. The anticipated running time is 90 minutes.

About the Cast

Brooklyn-bred bombshell Queerly Femmetastic (she/her/ma'am) is a nerdy connoisseur of Blackness. Her pronouns are she, her, and ma'am. Queerly is inspired by Black shake-dancers, strippers, and hoochie-coochie girls across generations. Your patron saint of multiple org*sms is an internationally renowned ecdysiast known for stealing souls and snatching titles, such as the Silver Tusk Awards Entertainer of the Year and Miss Coney Island 2026. Queerly loves the smell of books, practicing sneaky splits, and the feeling of your money on her skin.

James Tigger! Ferguson (he/they) has performed in NYC since 1988 & around the world since 1993. A pioneer in the 1990s burlesque renaissance known as "The Godfather of Neo-Boylesque," who won the 1st-ever "Mr. Exotic World/Best Boylesque" title at the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in 2006. He has headlined burlesque festivals all around Europe, Australia, North & South America. His act was banned in Rome. Tigger! has performed numerous original works with Target Margin Theater, Talking Band, Taylor Mac, Julie Atlas Muz, Penny Arcade, and other award-winning geniuses.

Daddy Ho (they/them) (Justin Ivan Brown) is "The Daddy who ACTUALLY Loves You!" Daddy is a multifaceted artist specializing in queer storytelling through devised theatre, film, burlesque, clown, and activism spanning a 30-year global career in the arts. Daddy has worked with New Stage Theatre, The Black Rep, Piper Theatre, Bangor Films, MUNY, 59E59, Barrow Theatre, SheNYC Festival, MITF, and many more. Films include 'Goodbye Seventies' & 'You Can't Stay Here.' Founder of Camp HO! a queer burlesque/clown troupe focused on bringing queer talent and advocacy to venues across the US; www.campho.org

Susannah MacLeod (she/they) is a NYC-based multidisciplinary artist. Stage credits include: Pericles (Target Margin Theater); Turandot, Aida (Metropolitan Opera); Her Name Means Memory (BAM); King Lear (Hamlet Isn't Dead); Richard III, Macbeth (Commonwealth Shakespeare Co); Both/And: A Quantum Physics Play (Catalyst Collaborative with MIT); Once a Blue Moon, Shahrazad (Double Edge Theatre); and the titular role in Richard III (Emerson Stage). Susannah spent a year training with New York's Siti Company as a Conservatory Artist and holds a BA in Acting from Emerson College.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and the child of Afro-Caribbean parents, J Molière (they/them) is an artist in pursuit of the intentional and celebratory queering of our accepted hegemonies. Whether it be classical texts or new works, their scholarship centers the experience of the Black and femme and fabulous. J has worked on many stages, among them La MaMa E.T.C., Moscow Art Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville as well as previously with Target Margin on Show/Boat: A River. Most recently, they starred in a new opera at the Tony award winning Wilma Theatre. Their undergraduate degree is in experimental theatre from Vassar College, and they hold an MFA in Acting from the University of Florida.

Timiki Salinas (he/they) is an actor, movement artist, and co-founder of The Bellwether Project. TMT Debut! Credits include Becky Nurse of Salem (Lincoln Center), The Legend of Georgia McBride (Ivoryton Playhouse), Twelfth Night (The Acting Company), Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing, Into The Woods (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival). Training: Carnegie Mellon University, Moscow Art Theatre. Current Public Theater's BIPOC Critics Lab Fellow & American Mime Theatre Company Member.

TANSY (she/her) is thrilled to be making her Target Margin debut! Select theater credits include Eager to Lose (Ars Nova), Champion (Met Opera). Film: The Immigrant, Play Me Burlesque TV: Netflix's "Bonding," Amazon's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." An international burlesque star, TANSY has headlined festivals across the U.S. and Europe, was crowned Miss Newcomer World at the World Burlesque Games in London and is a frequent performer at the Burlesque Hall of Fame. She is the creator and producer of the artist salon, Polite Society and TANSY's Carrot Machine, and is a resident artist at The Slipper Room, Duane Park, Bathtub Gin, and House of Yes.

Mari Vial-Golden (she/they) is a theatre artist, educator, and community herbalist & organizer based in Brooklyn, New York. As an actor, Mari has performed and collaborated with theaters across the city and country, including Target Margin, 59E59, Geva Theatre Center, Marin Theater Company, Hangar Theater, Triad Stage, PTPNYC, HVSF, Urbanite Theater, American Stage, Cal Shakes, Merrimack Rep, Noor Theatre, Florida Rep, Maaa Theater, and more. Mari also currently collaborates and works as a creative producer with the company One Whale's Tale. Marivialgolden.com

Merlin Whitehawk (he/him) is honored to join this cast and crew and everyone at Target Margin. He's worked with many other companies including: Mettawee River Theatre Company, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, The Brick, Buran Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Abrons Arts Center, The Mad Ones, Built 4 Collapse, Tiny Little Band, Animals Performance Group, New Ohio, and Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble. Training: Cornish College of the Arts and Ellie Heyman at Michael Howard Studios. He believes in collective liberation for all, because no one is free until everyone is free. Much love and gratitude to An and family.

About the Creative Team

Karen Boyer (she/her) (Costume Design) is a Costume Designer based in NYC.  She has a background in sculpture and textiles that continues to inform her work and process of building and approaching costumes.  Past and recent collaborators include choreographers Sidra Bell, Faye Driscoll, Catherine Galasso, Kayla Farrish, Liz Gerring, Cherylyn Lavagnino and Abigail Levine, and her work has been seen at theaters such as Alte Munze (Berlin), the Edinburgh Fringe Fest, LaMama Etc., the Bushwick Starr, the Brick, Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYLA, Playwrights Horizons, and Outside In Theatre (LA).  Her work has been seen in many TMT lab series, favorites include Gertrude Stein! BFA: Maryland Institute College of Art; MFA: NYU Tisch.  karenrachelboyer.com

Emily Duncan (she/her) (Production Manager) delights in works that live at the intersection of music, technology, literature, and art. Recent production management projects include “Black Water/Savior” (City Lyric Opera) and “See What I Wanna See” (Out of the Box Theatrics). As a contemporary specialist who loves the “weird” side of the flute, 95% of the music she performs is spooky but only 5% of it is written by dead people. Current projects include the multidisciplinary album Woolf at the Door (Neuma Records) and the Poe Project: new narrative flute pieces for every work in Edgar Allan Poe's canon.

Jesse Freedman (he/him) (Sound Demon) is a NYC based theater director, collaborator and the Artistic Director of Meta-Phys Ed. He has Sound Demon-ed several TMT productions. Directing credits include The Republic: Socrates in the Meta-Verse (The Doxsee), Crossing The Water, The Banality of Evil , Machine Learning Hamlet; or, Texts Like Daggers (The Brick), The Dybbuk (New Yiddish Rep), The Talmud (Target Margin Presents, Exponential Festival), Jew vs. Malta (La Mama) and Karaoke Bacchae (New Ohio, Ice Factory Festival). He is a Target Margin Associate Artist. He holds an MFA in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College.

David Herskovits (Director, Sound Design) is the Founding Artistic Director of Target Margin Theater. His most recent production Show/Boat: A River premiered in January 2025 at The NYU Skirball Center. He has directed a broad range of work, classics and neglected older work, new opera and music-theater, and adaptations of history and literature, for TMT and theaters, festivals, and universities all over, including The Spoleto Festival USA, Theatre for A New Audience, Lincoln Center Festival, The Bonn Biennale, The Kitchen, Mass MoCA, and many others. His Target Margin works have won multiple OBIEs and been presented nationally and internationally. David has lectured at many Universities and drama schools, and written for The New York Times, American Theatre, Theatre Magazine, and Performing Arts Journal, among others. David does not know what a play is and seeks continually to answer that question.

Marika Kent (Lighting Design) Select recent/upcoming in New York: Ulysses; Seagull (Elevator Repair Service), Not Not Jane's; Usus (Clubbed Thumb), The Great Privation (SOHO REP), Sweetwater…; Bernarda's Daughters; Amani (National Black Theater), Get Your Ass in the Water… (Wooster Group), Catch as Catch Can (Playwrights Horizons), The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy (Sinking Ship). Regional: Portland Center Stage, Denver Center, Pittsburgh Public, Trinity Rep, Arena Stage, and others. Marika teaches at NYU's Playwrights Horizons Theater School and is a proud member of USA Local 829. www.marikakent.com

Sarah Orttung (Stage Manager) will make her Target Margin debut! Recent credits include A Woman Among Women (Bushwick Starr), Turandot/Puzzles and Games (The New School), Le Nozze di Figaro (The Curtis Institute), Candide (The Curtis Institute), The Tribeca Festival, Don Pasquale (Opera Saratoga), Song of the Nightingale (On Site Opera). Training: Juilliard Professional Apprenticeship in Stage Management.

Orla Patterson (Assistant Director) is a theatre artist whose recent credits include stage management and props design for: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (Little Lord/The Exponential Festival), Broken Images (Tea & Pickle Productions/Paradise Factory Theater), Bobbie Clearly (Vaguely Sharp/Flamboyán at The Clemente), Adjuncts (the cell), Worms (Williamstown Theatre Festival), The Ghost of Bob Dylan Shows One of Us Greatness (Soho Playhouse), Episodic Theatre Project: Season 2 (Under St. Marks), and Into the Woods (Make Lemonade/The Flea).

Ari Richardson (Assistant Stage Manager) is an educator and stage manager originally hailing from Michigan (Go Blue!) Credits include Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? (Theater for the New City), Who's Your Daddy (Brick Aux), BULL (The Bridge Production Group), The Word of the Day (SheNYC), and The Two Noble Kinsmen (New York University). NYU Educational Theatre MA.