New Work Series WITCHES, QUEERS AND CLOWNS Will Bring A Host of Radical Artists to HERE in March

Witches, Queers and Clowns is a three-week performance series at HERE focused on societal outcasts. The works are radical, funny, historical and any combination of the three. From March 14th- 31st Witches, Queers and Clowns will transform the mainstage space at HERE into a home for artistic weirdos. The series is produced by Jonathan Cottle in association with BonfireWorks Foundation and will feature the premiere of Witches!? In Salem?!, a new play by Matt cox (Puffs).

Tickets can be purchased here.

The series will open at 8:30 pm on Thursday, March 14th with a concert hosted by multi-hyphenate glitter alien Amy Jo Jackson, joined by Kiki Soiree, Chelsey Ng, Ellis Gage, Sushma Saha, Murphy Smith and other uptown belters, downtown queerdos and everything in between. It will be followed at 8:30 pm on Friday March 15th by Adam J. Rineer's THIRD SEX: 1930's Transvestite Lieder, a found text song-cycle/punk cabaret based on the short stories, articles, poems, and personal essays of Das 3. Geschlecht, a transvestite magazine published in five issues from 1930-1932 in Berlin. It is developed and directed by Jason Aguirre, with translations by Erica Kastner & Thomas Gurinskas. On Saturday March 16th performances will begin for Witches!? In Salem?! by Matt cox (Puffs) and directed by Rachel Dart, a comedic, yet (mostly) historically accurate take on the Salem Witch Trials and all the (mostly) historically accurate horrors which can occur when a religious minority sets the laws of the land. Performances will continue throughout the three weeks. More information about Witches!? In Salem?! can be found at www.witchesinsalem.com

In Week Two, Scout Davis will offer a lip sync re-dramatization of Tiffany Trump's middle school production of CS Lewis' morality tale entitled Witch and the... on Wednesday March 20th at 8:30pm. It will be followed up on Thursday March 21st at 8:30pm by an evening of short song cycles, Unfinished Musical: the Musical, by Matt Bovee on such topics as despair, being gay and Legendary Magical Genderqueer Ancient Hawaiians. Week two will conclude on Sunday March 24th at 4pm with Recent Cutbacks' There is No Spoon, a queer parody of The Matrix featuring RCB's iconic physical comedy and foley SFX alongside drag, leather and of course, Kung Fu.

In the final week of the series, at 8:30pm on Wednesday March 27th audiences will hear Songs from The Ferret Show, an all-new musical about the weird and wondrous world of competitive Ferret pageants by Dan Mills & Ben Thornewill (Jukebox the Ghost), book by Matt cox and Stephen Stout. At New Score at 4pm on Saturday March 30th, a variety of musical theater writers will present their songs and some of the stories behind them. Scheduled to appear are Amy Jo Jackson, Julian Hornik, Savanna Kenny, Durra Leung, Alex Lin, Dylan Schifrin and more. Rounding out the series at 4pm on Sunday March 31st will be It All Comes Down where Lance Horne and friends will sing songs in the lobby while the box office tallies the earnings, carpenters tear down the set and the whole thing comes crashing down, literally speaking.

The series is produced by Jonathan Cottle in association with BonfireWorks Foundation, a Hudson Valley based non-profit dedicated to supporting the commission, development and creation of public artworks and arts experiences to inspire and promote human connection. It is a part of SubletSeries@HERE: a curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as a technical liaison.

More information about Witches, Queers and Clowns can be found at wqcny.com

Artwork by Clay Brown (Insta: @claybrownplayground)

Bios

Amy Jo Jackson (they/she) won a 2022 Bistro Award for their solo Tennessee Williams cabaret act, The Brass Menagerie. Fav stage: Fun Home (SpeakEasy Stage), Singin' in the Rain (Weston), Matilda (Constellation), Little Mermaid (Arkansas Rep), Cymbeline (Opera House Arts), Boeing Boeing (Seven Angels). Film credits include Sister Tammy in Dicks: The Musical (A24), and the singing voice of an animated crab in Under the Boardwalk (Paramount). AJJ's original musical Hatchetation was a 2021 selection at the O'Neill (NMTC). They were a finalist for the 2022 Larson Grant and are the recipient of a 2023 EST/Sloan Commission. Amy Jo is also a voice/text coach and nightlife artist.

Matt cox (Puffs; or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic, The Kapow-i GoGo Sagas, Guy Choiceman Decides To Save America: The Chooseical: Where YOU Do The Chooses) is a playwright, actor, improviser, sound designer, and former comic book retail associate based in New York City. Coming Soon: The Ferret Show, a new musical about life, love, and competitive ferret competitions. @coxxyloxxy www.MattCoxLand.com

Rachel Dart Recent credits include Coming Soon: A New Rock Musical (world premiere at Z Space-SF Chronicle's Best of Theater 2022); Dance Nation (regional premiere, Nashville Story Garden); Adam Szymkowicz's The Christmas Tree Farm (world premiere, Mile Square Theatre); and two Princeton University Triangle Club shows (McCarter Theatre Center). New plays, musicals, and classics at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theatre503, Edinburgh Fringe, Ma-Yi, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood, the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Berklee NYC, and Philly Fringe, among many others. Associate and assistant directing includes The Vineyard, BAM, Roundabout Theatre Company, and on Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club (most recently Summer, 1976). Rachel has been an artist in residence at Hundredth Hill (2022) and New York Theatre Barn/Fire Island Pines Arts Project's Barn on Fire residency (2023). She is an alumna of the Williamstown Directing Corps and The Actors Theatre of Louisville Professional Training Company, and a proud member of SDC.

Adam J. Rineer (they/xe/he) is a NYC composer, writer, music director, and artistic leader. Adam's work has been developed with or performed at Roundabout Theatre Company, NYMF, Theatre Now New York, The Parkside Lounge, Green Room 42, The Maas Building, and CAP21. Their work as a music director has been at MCC Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, TheatreWorks Hartford, Prima Theatre, The Cutting Room, and many more. Adam is the Founding Co-Artistic Director of UNTITLED Musical Project and holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Collaboration from Temple University. @adamjrineer

Jason Aguirre (he/him/el) is a New York-based Mexican-American director, bookwriter, and choreographer, and has developed and presented work at The Tank, Theatre Now New York, The Parkside Lounge, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Maas Building, CAP21, Pace University, and NYU. He is an alumnus of the Directors Group at Roundabout Theatre Company, a SDCF Fellow - Mentored by Susan Stroman, a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, a graduate of the George and Joy Abbott MFA in Musical Theatre Collaboration at Temple University, and the Co-Founding Artistic Director of UNTITLED Musical Project - a space dedicated to providing space for marginalized musical theatre writers of BIPOC/Global Majority, LGBTQIA+/Queer, and their intersecting identities. www.j-aguirre.com @jasona57

Scout Davis (they/them) is a non-binary queer creator of live communal performance works. Their work has been seen at The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, The Chelsea Factory, The Sibiu International Theater Festival, The Clemente Center, The Brick, The Wild Project and Dixon Place. Recent directing credits include Putting it Together and Small Mouth Sounds at Pace School of the Performing Arts, Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at Seton Hill University, and As I Eat The World by Luis Roberto Herrera at The Tank. Scout is an alumni of The John Wells MFA Directing Program at Carnegie Mellon University and The International Performance Ensemble Program at Pace University.

Matt Bovee is an actor, musician, and director based in Brooklyn. He was the 2022 Fulbright recipient to the the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where he received his MA in Classical Acting. As an actor, he has performed for over a decade in NYC. ("superb" -Timeout) As a creator, his diverse background in theater, dance and music contribute to an eclectic, multi-disciplinary approach to storytelling, drawing from a broad palette of influences and aesthetics. Recent composition work includes the original short-form musical From the Middle of the Ocean (Thesis, LAMDA) exploring the third gender of "mahu" and his own Native Hawaiian heritage. Previous short-form musical works include Everything is Fine: The Musical (The Tank NYC) and Lady on a Train (The Tank NYC, City Reliquary BK).

Recent Cutbacks is an ensemble-driven company whose projects include the critically-acclaimed comedies Hold On To Your Butts, Fly You Fools, KEVIN!!!!!, Next Day Thrones, Zoomhog Day, and the Audible Original Master Lecture Series: History of the Third Robot War. RCB's work invites audiences to see the world with a newfound exuberance and remind them why they fell in love with movies, theater, and storytelling in the first place.

Kristin McCarthy Parker (Recent Cutbacks Co-Founder) is a NYC-based director of stage and film. They have directed and devised RCB's projects since its founding in 2014. They are also the director of Puffs (Off-Broadway) and its live capture (available on Amazon and iTunes). They have directed for Edinburgh Fringe, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, Broken Box Mime, All For One, PEN America's Prison Writing Program, Ma-Yi, Columbia University, and many others. Recent film work includes the sci-fi short, ALPHA. They are a proud company member of Broken Box Mime. www.kristinmccarthyparker.com @kristinmcparker

Nick Abeel (Co-Founder) is a NY-based Dad and artist who performs, writes, directs, edits video, designs sound, and occasionally works as a foley artist. You can hear Nick in the Recent Cutbacks Audible Original: History of the 3rd Robot War, a 6-part parody lecture series he co-wrote and starred in. Nick is also a veteran company member of Broken Box Mime Theater. These two companies form the backbone of Nick's creative work, but he's also performed at The PIT, UCB, 59E59, the Tank, Dixon Place, the Denver Center and the Kennedy Center. Nickabeel.com

Ben Thornewill and Dan Mills (Music and Lyrics) Ben is the lead singer, songwriter and pianist of Jukebox The Ghost, releasing five studio albums, one live album and playing 1,200+ shows around the world including performances on Conan, Letterman and at festivals such as Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. His song "Everybody's Lonely" reached the top 20 on alternative radio. As a solo artist, Thornewill has released three albums, composed a film score, and recorded and toured with artists such as Sting and Ingrid Michaelson. Dan is a singer/songwriter who portrayed Carl Perkins in the Broadway cast of Million Dollar Quartet and his song "Best I Could" was nominated for Sirius XM Coffeehouse's "Singer/Songwriter Discovery of the Year". Mills's 2017 release "Something Good" received over a million streams on Spotify, and a #49 spot on the AMA radio chart. Mills co-wrote, directed and scored "One, Ten, One Hundred," a Webby Award-winning docu-series that explores the complicated relationship between money and creativity. He also wrote the music and lyrics for the song-cycle "Fiction in Photographs," which was later released as a cast album under the name "Songs from a Failed Play."

Matt cox and Stephen Stout (Book) collaborated on the Off-Broadway wizard comedy Puffs (New World Stages). It was filmed and distributed by Fathom Events, and is available via Amazon, iTunes, and BroadwayHD. They're currently developing Kapow-i GoGo, a two-part epic inspired by every cartoon, video game, comic book, and franchise that filled your childhood.

Lance Horne is an Emmy award-winning composer, pianist, singer, and music director who has arranged for/performed with Alan Cumming, Jake Shears/Scissor Sisters, Ricki Lake, Rufus Wainwright, Pink Martini, Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue, the von Trapps, Ben Folds, Neil Gaiman, Kristin Chenoweth, Justin Bond, Sandra Bernhard, Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls, Cheyenne Jackson, Kelli O'Hara, Meow Meow, Taylor Mac, the Gatlin Brothers, Boston Pops, Seoul Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, London/SF/LA/NY Gay Men's Chorus, Sydney Dance Company, Michael Feinstein, Carol Channing, and Sesame Street; performed for President Obama, the First Lady, and Queen Elizabeth; multiple appearances at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and London's West End. Broadway: vocal arrangements for Little Women, composer of Ricki Lake Show theme (FOX), Macy's Parades (NBC), multiple film scores, and new work in development with LA Opera. Mr. Horne is a Steinway Artist, recipient of Jonathan Larson, Bistro, and ASCAP Awards, Interlochen graduate with BM, MM in Composition, The Juilliard School.

 

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