The Flea to Present Staged Reading of BATHHOUSE.PPTX by Jesús Valles

The Flea in association with the Yale Drama Series is presenting a staged reading of BATHHOUSE.PPTX by Jesús Valles. BATHHOUSE.PPTX was selected as the 2023 recipient of the Yale Drama Series Prize judged by Jeremy O. Harris, and it is the first recipient of The Flea’s production commission program, an open call program that provides a finishing commission and full production to an experimental new work by Black, brown and/or queer artists. 
 
BATHHOUSE.PPTX is an epic new play following The Presenter, a “young,” queer, Mexican-American public-speaking student, who is thrust into the landscapes of queer intimacy, colonialism and communal spaces for pleasure when his presentation on the history of cleanliness and bathing starts to burst at the seams with the ghosts of a bathhouse at the end of the world including A Conquistador! Wearing One of Those Hats!, A Very Real Twink, and even the appearance of Laura Linney. Valles describes it as, “A group project for perverts. Somewhere between lecture, re-enactment, and cruising ground. A meditation on queer longing, queer grief, and all our queer worlds that will come to pass, that will come to be.”
 
The reading at The Flea (20 Thomas Street), staged by Chay Yew, will take place on Monday, October 30 at 3:00 PM and is free and open to the public.
 
The Flea’s Executive Artistic Director, Niegel Smith says, “Every so often you come across a play that is epic in scale, written with delicious language and yet deeply personal, with characters that seize you as they careen toward their desires. Jesús' play grabbed the attention of the entire Flea staff. As soon as we read it, we knew we had to bring it to production!”
 
“This is one of the most exciting speculative fictions I’ve encountered in years, using a unique dramaturgy to explore a queer history that is quickly being erased,” said Jeremy O. Harris. “It brought to mind the works of many heroes like Samuel Delany, Martin Crimp, and Kathy Acker.”
 
 
Learn more at www.theflea.org.
 
The Flea was refounded in 2021 with the mission to support and invest in experimental art by Black, brown, and queer artists. The Flea provides space, financial support, producing partnership and other resources so that they may develop and share their vision in community with audiences.