Bark of millions | Taylor mac & matt ray (world premiere: Main concert hall, sydney opera house, 2023 | US premiere: Brooklyn academy of music, 2024 | European premiere: Berliner Festspiele, 2024)

A powerhouse collective of international artists ignite an electrifying collision of performance, live music, and drag spectacle in the latest from theater-making renegades Taylor Mac, Matt Ray, and Machine Dazzle. The team unleashes their creativity in a rock opera meditation on queerness, featuring 55 original songs by Mac and Ray and a bevy of costumes by Dazzle. With the fierce elation of a pride parade, Bark of Millions is a luxuriant, provocative spectacle unlike any other. My involvement with Bark of Millions was as a singer, dancer and performer.

From the award-winning creative and producing teams behind A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, this joyous epic is both a celebration of and a gift to the queer canon, expanding the archive for generations to come. My involvement with Bark of Millions was as a singer, dancer and performer.

Produced by Pomegranate Arts and Nature’s Darlings. Commissioned by Pomegranate Arts and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). Co-commissioned by Sydney Opera House and the Berliner Festspiele with additional support by the Ron Beller & Jennifer Moses Family Foundation and Hal Philipps. Residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, MASS MoCA-North Adams, MA, Irish Arts Center-New York City, and PEAK Performances in the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University-Montclair, NJ.

Directed, concept and lyrics by: Taylor Mac

Music and music direction by: Matt Ray

Co-directed by Niegel Smith

Co-directed and choreography by: Faye Driscoll

Costume design by Machine Dazzle

Lighting design by John Torres

Sound design by Brendan Aanes

Props design by Oscar Escobedo and Zach Blumner

Ensemble: Chris Giarmo, El Beh, Jack Fuller (Vocal Captain), Jules Skloot, Le Gateau Chocolat, Machine Dazzle, Mama Alto, Matt Ray, Sean Donovan (Associate Choreographer), Steffanie Christi’an, Stephen Quinn, Taylor Mac, Thornetta Davis, Viva DeConcini and Wes Olivier.

Band: Ari Folman-Cohen, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks, Dana Lyn, Greg Glassman, Joel E. Mateo, Lisa “Paz” Parrott, Marika Hughes and Matt Ray.

Pomegranate Arts team: Linda Braumbach, Alisa E. Regas, Rachel Katwan and Jeremy Lydic, Marion Ayers, Max Helburn, Florent Trioux

Production team: Jason Kaiser, Cassey Kivnick, Cori Matos Aguilera, Kathe Mull

Praise for bark of millions

“a quietly gorgeous ballad for the mythical Greek shepherd Prosymnus sung by the diminutive, mesmerizing Stephen Quinn, their bejeweled eyes and gold-glitter-caked mustache flashing in the stage lights” - New York Magazine

“Glorious” - The New York Times

★ ★ ★ ★ “What might radical queer art look like now? Taylor Mac has an answer” - The Guardian

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “queer church at its ecstatic best” - The Queer Review

★ ★ ★ ★ “the show is a magnificent collaboration with a […] 22-strong, variously queer, and impossibly excellent ensemble” - Limelight Magazine