New York City in summer is hot and steamy and Dixon Place, the echt-alternative East Village/Lower East Side cultural institution and performance venue, is determined to make it even hotter. Located at 161A Christie Street, between Rivington and Delancey Streets, Dixon Place has announced what promises to be a stupendous 19th Annual 2010 HOT! Festival, billed as "NYC's Celebration of Queer Culture," with more than 150 LGBTQ artists participating in 72 theatre, dance and music performances, literary ventures, performance art, and homoeroticism in the course of six weeks. The endeavor seems staggering and the sheer number of familiar, illustrious LGBTQ names that jump off the pages of the Hot! Festival calendar will bowl you over.
The HOT! Festival will run from June 26 to August 7 and for reservations and advance tickets, visit www.hotfestival.org or telephone 212/219-0736, or just show up and buy tickets at the door. There are two pre-season events on June 24-a "Gentlemen's Night Out" shopping crawl through the Lower East Side and "BT/Gay/Band," a Pride celebration performance by improv and story telling rock band BTK Band. The opening night kickoff/post-Dyke March "Anti-Diva" party, free and open to all, takes place on June 26, from 6:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. and is hosted by Liz Liguori and Jessie Mann. Marc Gould Cummings hosts open mic nights on June 28 and July 26.
Readers of this publication may be aware of Shim Mamser Productions' recent twists, queer and twisted, on existing B movies, melodramatic plays, and favorite television shows and, in this spirit, on June 29 and 30, Tweed Fractured Classicks presents Shim Mamser and Cherry Grove diva Miss Sweetie, Charles Busch sidekick Julie Halston, cabaret's Jay Rogers, wry comic Greg Wallach, and company in "Pic-up," "a sick, (yet reverent!) homage" to William Inge's "Picnic." Tickets at $50 include priority seating and two cocktails. General admission tickets are priced at $20.
Hear Washboard Jungle, "the first post-digital jug band," play on July 1. This benefit for Dixon Place, with tickets at $25 and $75, will feature selections from band member Lee Feldman's opera "Starboy." Dynasty Handbag AKA Detective Bags AKA Jibz Cameron gives us the noir-inspired "VERTititGO" on Fridays and Saturdays, from July 2 to 24, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Later on the 2nd, Laura Berlin Stinger offers her take on Anna Nicole Smith, entitled "After Collapsing." In case we don't know, or have forgotten, how to be gay, Frank DeCaro will be on hand with "Gay 101: a Primer," on July 6, covering "Cher to 'Showgirls,' Charles Pierce to Charles Busch, Cole Porter to 'The Night Porter.'" Later that evening, in "Blatant," a collaboration of Eva Mueller, Jack Shamblin and Hugo Paquete, meet "super bitch Janis," "trapped in the web-cast of a medical soap opera, 'Red Alert.'"
On July 7, Marcia Monroe curates a dance event billed as "Crossing Boundaries" and pianist Adam Tendler offers a genre-bending musical program under the rubric "Autumn Lines."
And that's just the first week-and-a-half or so!
Skimming the rest of the schedule for familiar names, I found female female impersonator World Famous Bob and friends in "Gender Fabulous!-Realness" on July 9 at 9:30 p.m.--$10 in advance, $15 at the door-and Bob doing her autobiographical "One Man Show" on July 23-same pricing schedule; screenings of Jim Tushinski's documentary "That Man: Peter Berlin," about the elusive erotic star of the 1970s, nicknamed "the Greta Garbo of porn," on July 13, and Joe E. Jeffreys' "Drag Show Video Vérité," featuring footage of Mario Montez, Zondra Foxx, Rose Wood, Jackie Beat, Mimi Imfurst, and many more, on July 20; Holly Hughes in her comic meditation "The Dog and Pony Show (Bring Your Own Pony)" on August 3 and 4 at 7:30 p.m.; "The Ones," Nashom Wooden, JoJo Americo and Paul Alexander in an evening of disco, pop and glitter, with the collaboration of Amanda Lepore, Colton Ford, Joe Oppedisano and others, on August 4 at 9:30 p.m.; and the inimitable, irrepressible Reno in "Money Talks" on the closing night, August 7 at 9:30 p.m., tickets $20.
Are you overwhelmed yet, just reading about it all? Wait till you experience it! Go-and have a GLBTQ old time!
