“Stunning... Freakishly brilliant.” 5 Stars – Time Out NY

“Mac attacks the familiar with such brash originality that the show dazzles.  He creates a sublime tapestry.” – The New York Times

“Taylor Mac seduces you, breaks your heart, puts it back together again, and stitches sequins along the scar.” – The Irish Times

Using flowers as a metaphor for queer (meaning different not simply gay) communities, Taylor Mac and an ensemble of over 30 performers and musicians, tell the story of a self-uprooted lily, on a quest to destroy the modern tool for oppression -- nostalgia. This play, inspired by Japanese Noh theatre, is part two of Taylor’s Armageddon coupling, which explores an ever-growing homogeneity.  Puppets, elaborate costume designs, super-8 projections, live music, and vaudevillian theatrics bring back the macabre and explore how our national pastime has become oppressive melancholy remembrances.

THE LILY’S REVENGE is the second half of Taylor Mac’s Armageddon series (his large ensemble play RED TIDE BLOOMING being the first).  It is not a sequel, but a further exploration of themes:  the homogeneity of culture, “alternative” community, and “end times” narratives and their use by political and cultural forces that promote and enforce the homogeneity of culture.  

Inspired by the recent anti-gay marriage agendas, which used tradition and nostalgia as an argument for oppression (“marriage has always been between a man and a woman”), as well as the ever-growing homogenization of our cities (“things aren’t the way they used to be”), and finally the nostalgic funerals surrounding Ronald Reagan (and the millions of flowers thrown onto to the White House lawn), LILY continues Taylor’s approach to theatre as community action. In it the first four acts will be executed by four different directors/ensembles with the final act being a massive collaboration between the different ensembles.

LILY is part Noh play (composed of five acts based on the Noh themes of Deity, Ghost-Warrior, Love, Living-Person, and Demon, for each act), part vaudevillian theatric, part video instillation, part puppet theater, and part dance.  It lives in the theater and becomes a site-specific extravaganza.  It is a multidisciplinary pastiche where a community of artists is brought together, showcasing how New York (and other cities struggling with homogeneity) are vibrant, political, and socially conscious now – not merely former hot-beds.

Work Samples:

--"Free Weekend Minutes" from "The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac" live at the 
TBA Festival

--"The War Criminal Romp"  from "The Face of Liberalism" performed by  
Taylor Mac

--"The Weather Report" from "Red Tide Blooming" 

For more on Taylor Mac's work, visit his website... 

Taylor Mac’s approach to theatre stems from a belief that people are an amalgamation of definitions and ideas.  We are a culmination of a past altered and/or forgotten as well as a future we obsessively imagine.  Our DNA is enriched with age and variance.  We move around in multifaceted gender, race, and emotions.  We are hateful and wonderfully loving, greedy and giving, scared witless and tremendously brave in our intelligence – all at the same time.

As a result his work is primarily a response to and an exploration of homogeneity.  Combining various genres and techniques, he writes solo and ensemble plays that juxtapose stream-of-consciousness images from such topics as the masculine "War on Terror", white appropriation of black culture, and patriarchy in romance. By showing the duality of human beings – and having that duality reflected in the text, aesthetic, and performance style – he provides a balance to our adoration of sameness.

Taylor Mac creates both large-ensemble performance plays and solo-works. In 2007 the Village Voice, Time Out, and The New York Press named him one of New York’s best.  His plays have been presented in literally hundreds of venues all over Europe, Australia, and the United States including: The Sydney Opera House, Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater, London's Soho Theatre, Stockholm’s Sodra Teatern, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, Portland's Time Based Arts Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival, The San Francisco MOMA, and upcoming at The Spoleto Festival. Taylor has performed solo for the BBC and has been a guest artists for Fischerspooner, Nina Hagen, The Dresden Dolls, the Olivier Award winning “C’est Duckie”, Weimar NY, and many more.  Quite possibly he’s the only performer in the world to work with Karen Finley and Mandy Patinkin.  Vintage Press, New York Theatre Review, New York Theatre Experience have published his texts and he is the recipient of The Edinburgh Festival's Herald Angel Award, a GLAAD Media Nomination, three Brighton Best of Festival awards, PS 122's first ever Ethyl Eichelberger award, a NYSCA Grant, The Franklin Furnace Grant, a Peter S. Reed Grant, EST’s New Voices Fellowship, A Mabou Mines Suite (with collaborator Elizabeth Swados) and he is currently a HERE Arts Center Resident Artist and a member of New Dramatists.