this Thursday, April 13th, is the opening night of Taylor Mac’s Red Tide Blooming.

Set in a phantasmagorical aquatic wonderland, Red Tide Blooming tells the story of Olokun, a hermaphrodite sea creature, who is on a quest to find a community of divine freaks on a far-off place called The Floating Landfill. Using the revitalization of Coney Island as a metaphor for America’s obsessive desire to find safety by eradicating the old, odd, and the uncomfortable, Red Tide Blooming uses song, dance, burlesque and classic Mermaid Parade antics to create a collective visualization of Armageddon in the murky waters of gentrification and cultural homogenization.

Taylor Mac creates fantastical, genre-and-gender-bending theater in the tradition of Charles Ludlam and the Theater of the Ridiculous, The Cockettes, Theatre Couture and Ethyl Eichelberger. Bringing together the grand spectacles of musical theater with the glitter and outrageousness of the downtown performance scene, Mac creates performances that excite, entertain, and engage audiences, taking them on a rollicking ride through a fabulous post-apocalyptic fantasy landscape.

With Red Tide Blooming Taylor Mac teams up with puppeteer Basil Twist, choreographer Julie Atlas Muz and a slew of New York’s most joyous, extreme and outrageously gifted downtown performers to create this a musical extravaganza inspired by the gentrification of Coney Island and imagining the Last Mermaid Parade Ever.

Red Tide Blooming: Written and Directed by Taylor Mac; choreography by Julie Atlas Muz; puppets by Basil Twist; scenic Design by Derrick Little; costumes and makeup by Steven Menendez, and lighting design by Garin Marschall.

Featuring Todd D’Amour, Bridget Everett, James Tigger Ferguson, Laryssa Husiak, Stacie Karpen, Bianca Leigh, Taylor Mac, Dirty Martini, Steven Menendez, Scotty The Blue Bunny, Ruby Lynn Reyner, Suzi Takahashi, and Layard Thompson.

READ THE ARTICLE IN THE BROOKLYN RAIL!