Taylor Mac

It's completely different, small space, really powerful, beautiful show.

Check that out.

um tomorrow i'm seeing the arts emerson and huntington uh partnership for taylor mack and matt ray's songs from bark of millions an electrifying collision of performance drag and queer history so i'm looking forward to that but otherwise i'm quite busy because i'm in rehearsals for the wash which is front porch's first show of our 10th season and that uh opens october 31st and runs till november 22nd we just launched this um a discount ticket program, so you can see it for as low as $10.

So we busy.

Okay.

Rather than recounting biographies, the show celebrates these lives with performances that can be outrageous, irreverent, and poignantly moving.

Created by MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow Taylor Mac and Obie award-winning composer Matt Ray, Bark of Millions premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2023 before it played New York and Berkeley.

Now a concert version, Songs from Bark of Millions is on stage at ArtsEmerson Thursday through Sunday.

Joining me to talk about it all are Taylor Mac and Matt Ray.

Welcome to The Culture Show.

Great to have you both here.

We didn't want to say, the show is only going to be this.

It's some of the way that we work, where we say, we want to make a show with these people in the show, and we know what the show is, and so what is the bridge that bridges that gap? And so the bridge is all of these different genres of songs.

I always say, "You know, if you really love your work and you're really good to it, it's gonna be good to you in the end." And I believe that, you know? Even in spite of all the media messages and things, I still believe that

thatYeah, I've been going to so much theater lately, and like the other day I was at this performance of Taylor Mac's, and I'm going next week as well.

And I, I'm, and I was just like, "Guys, this exists.

Like, get off your phones.

[upbeat music] On today's episode, we have a very special guest.

They are playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac.

And Taylor Mac is so many things, you know, MacArthur Genius Award winner, Guggenheim Fellowship Award winner.

Everything that you can think of, Taylor Mac has done.

Taylor Mac is an artist I fell in love with deeply in the 2010s.

And, and when I was working at Grindr, I had the opportunity as one of the first things I ever produced as a young theater producer, we were able to put up Taylor's show, The Twenty-Four Decade History of Popular Music, which is a show you can watch.

I think it's on streaming.

Twenty-four hours, no breaks.

Again, that's SiriusXM.com slash VibeCheck.

Stay tuned because this Friday's episode is a conversation between Zach and the artist Taylor Mac.

It is.

Bye.

same people.

That's interesting.

I still would like to see some people play it, like Taylor Mack I would love to see play Hedwig or Mary.

Okay.

I'm trying to think of people who can do it, who can sing it.

like was it what was it like and there's something kind of cool about that that there isn't a definitive one way to do it

That's actually interesting you bring that up, because I saw that play Gary, a sequel to Titus Andronicus that was on Broadway in 2019 by Taylor Mac.

And I will be honest, and this is no hate to Nathan Lane, who starred in it and was fabulous, or Taylor Mac, who's a very interesting artist, but it wasn't my favorite play ever, and that's fine.

It was very...

It didn't have a lot of narrative structure, which is...