The last time Taylor Mac performed a show in Australia, audiences described it as “life-changing”. The virtuosic drag artist is bringing a new show down under for one night only.
Like most gay bars at the time, it was run by the mafia and frequently targeted for bootlegging. Yet, Stonewall was one of the few safe havens for queer people in a city where homosexual acts were illegal and venues could be shut down for allowing queer people on premises.
The New York-based Tony-nominated playwright, drag artist and theatremaker has spent years contemplating the blank pages of queer history and its all-but-forgotten characters, like Marsha P. Johnson. Mac has collaborated with Obie award-winning composer Matt Ray to write 55 original songs — one for every year since Stonewall — inspired by queer people throughout world history.
"Everyone has such a unique voice and that's also what's really exciting about the show … the songs are inspired by different queer people from world history, and then they're all interpreted by different queer people," says Mac.One of the songs was inspired by Mac's "drag mother", Mother Flawless Sabrina.
Mother Flawless's favourite thing to do was to give advice. Some of it Mac had heard before but says, "coming from a queen" it landed differently. "I was told to 'butch up' more times than I can count by every teacher I ever had. I was told I would never have a career unless I pretended to be straight."
The last show Mac brought to Australia was an epic durational solo performance called A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.In it, Mac re-imagines and "queers" some 240 popular songs spanning 24 decades from 1776. "I call it a parade trance extravaganza for the living library of the deviant theme. That's the genre," Mac laughs."I thought, 'If I made a queer person out of a show, what would it be?' And it would be hybrid, right? A queer person couldn't possibly be one thing.
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