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

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.

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.

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

Press links for bark of millions

New York Magazine Review:

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-reviews-bark-of-millions-taylor-mac-the-following-evening.html

The Guardian Feature:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/aug/17/taylor-mac-bark-of-millions-sydney-opera-house-october

The Guardian Review:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/oct/21/taylor-mac-bark-of-millions-review-a-bombastic-queer-history-told-over-55-songs

Bark of Millions: Fantasy and Mystery, Rooted in Queerness:

https://calperformances.org/2024/02/08/fantasty-queerness-bark-of-millions/

The New Yorker Feature:

https://tinyurl.com/3jpt9v9r

Brookyln Magazine Feature:

https://www.bkmag.com/2024/02/05/the-reverse-conversion-therapy-of-taylor-mac/

The Queer Review:

https://thequeerreview.com/2023/10/20/theatre-review-bark-of-millions-sydney-opera-house/

The New York Times (Musical Director Matt Ray) Feature

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/04/arts/music/matt-ray-bark-of-millions.html

The New York Times Review:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/theater/bark-of-millions-review.html

Limelight Magazine:

https://tinyurl.com/5y6wscxr

San Fransisco Chronicle Review:

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/bark-of-millions-review-18672042

Sfist Review:

https://sfist.com/2024/02/26/taylor-mac-returns-to-bay-area-stage-with-a-devotional-four-hour-song-set-on-queer-history/

Privilege: The Musical | Louise White (mermaid arts centre, 2022)

Privilege: The Musical! is a glittering, soul searching look at power and inequality, the most ambitious show to date from award-winning theatre maker Louise White. Starring a gender bending, intersectional, fire-cracking cast of Jade O’Connor, Venus Patel, Stephen Quinn, & Ashley Xie, with musical composition from Matt Regan and cello performance by Lioba Petrie, audiences can expect expect gaslighting show tunes, snowflake earnestness, and theatre tropes aplenty.

How do we unpack the complicated reality of our co-existence?

Can we make a gloves off look at Privilege knees up entertaining?

We’re gonna leave it all on the floor trying...

This production was funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Dublin City Council, with support from Project Arts Centre, Mermaid Arts Centre, and field:arts. Developed the support of Dublin Fringe Festival. Louise White is a resident artist of Project Arts Centre. Killian Coyle is an independent producer at field:arts.

Press links for Privilege: The Musical

RTE feature:

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2022/0211/1279259-privilege-the-musical-all-that-glitters/

GCN feature:

https://gcn.ie/privilege-musical-new-faux-pas/

The Independent feature:

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wicklow/lifestyle/privilege-the-musical-to-premiere-at-brays-mermaid-arts-centre-41335146.html

anu Productions | faultline (Dublin theatre festival, 2019) 

In 1982 a series of unrelated events ruptured Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community, with catastrophic consequences.1,500 people, mostly gay men, were investigated and details of their intimate lives were divulged to families, friends and employers. Under pressure from Church and State, a faultline formed, resulting in a mass exodus from Ireland in search of anonymity and refuge.

During Fautline, multi-award-winning Irish theatre company ANU propelled audiences through a living history, based on source materials contained in the Irish Queer Archive, encountering those at the heart of this upheaval as they grapple with the threat of public perception of their very private lives. As a performer and co-creator on this piece, my contribution was significant, introducing a queer politic that explored assimilation, respectability, gay shame and queer martyrdom through dance, acting and imagistic storytelling.

Supported by The Arts Council, Dublin City Council, Gate Theatre Residency, Live Collision International Festival and The National Library of Ireland.

Praise for Faultline

★ ★ ★ ★ “thrillingly immediate” - The Irish Times

★ ★ ★ ★ “Eloquently directed and choreographed… a powerful spur to empathy” - The Guardian

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “epic in aspiration, biblical in power, divine in execution…” - The Arts Review

★ ★ ★ ★ “A powerful, intimate experience at a crucial historical moment” - The Business Post

★ ★ ★ ★ “your gut remains punched for a long time afterwards" - RTE Arena

★ ★ ★ ★ “A heartfelt depiction of a movement gaining ground” - Musings In Intermission

Press links for Faultine


GCN feature (p45)

https://magazine.gcn.ie/magazine/reader/190490?fbclid=IwAR0RcxUP235v_TAu55PhooqQGPYMNYUlzICmcH8oRNq5L4j6WBAdu0DGq0w

The Irish Times review

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/faultline-review-immersive-journey-through-a-societal-upheaval-1.4035128

The Guardian review

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/oct/07/dublin-theatre-festival-review-gay-clubs-glass-houses-and-greek-tragedy

The Arts Review review

https://www.theartsreview.com/single-post/2019/10/18/Faultline

Musings In Intermissions review

https://musingsinintermissions.blogspot.com/2019/10/faultline-review-heartfelt-depiction-of.html

anu Productions | faultline work-in-progress (Project Arts Centre, 2018)

A work-in-development performance of Faultline was presented as part of Live Collision International Festival (Project Arts centre, 2018). For this showing, Matthew Williamson and I created a dance piece that explored the extensive Irish Queer Archive at the National Library of Ireland, examining in particular the events of January 20th, 1982, whereby a gay man Charles Self was murdered in Dublin.  Nobody has ever been charged with his killing and, nearly 40 years later, those who knew him still grapple with the circumstances of his death and the controversial investigation that followed. As part of this investigation, Gardaí raided a members-only gay club, confiscated the list of members and began ‘outing’ members of an underground, covert gay community overnight. This sent terror through the community and resulted in a mass exodus by its members out of Ireland and across the Irish sea to London and other major cities, where anonymity and refuge could be sought. Families across Ireland disowned their sons and daughters upon these revelations and unrepairable heartache was inflicted across the gay community.  Almost 1,500 men were investigated. There was no going back.

Created by Louise Lowe with Stephen Quinn, Domhnall Herdman, Carl Kennedy, Matthew Malone, Lynnette Moran and Matthew Williamson.

Designed by Owen Boss & Andrew Clancy

Lighting: Ciaran O’Melia

Supported by The Arts Council, Gate Theatre Residency and National Library of Ireland.

Taylor Mac|24 decade history of popular music (Barbican Centre, 2018)

Fabulous and fearless, 2017 MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient Taylor Mac reframes the social history of America through three decades of song in this no-holds-barred extravaganza of music, art, activism and hugely entertaining mass ritual. Joined onstage by a 22-piece orchestra and host of local special guests, New York’s Mac has created a Pulitzer Prize-nominated, once-in-a-lifetime, immersive performance in a quest to chronicle how communities grow stronger as they are being torn apart. Charting the years 1776–1806, Mac asks the audience to conspire in the reimagining of rebellions, revolutions, triumphs and tragedies. Bawdy pub songs, sea shanties and subversive anthems are rearranged as musical mash-ups to take on a chapter of the defining early years of America’s history. During this performance, as part of LIFT 2018 at the Barbican Theatre in London, I was engaged in the role of “Dandy Minion” - i.e. a kind of facilitator of audience participation, engagement, interaction etc. - and constructed various costumes to wear throughout, in response to each corresponding decade.

Conception and Co-Direction: Taylor Mac

Musical Direction and Arranger: Matt Ray

Co-Direction: Niegel Smith

Costumes: Machine Dazzle

Lighting: John Torres

Dramaturgy: Jocelyn Clarke

Produced by Pomegranate Arts and Nature’s Darlings. This engagement was supported by Mid Atlantic Art Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Howard Gilman Foundation. 

Praise for Taylor Mac’s 24 decade history of popular music:

★★★★★ “one of the greatest experiences of my life” - The New York Times

★★★★★ “explosive, spectacular, heartbreaking” - The Guardian

★★★★★ “we were delirious and smitten, sundered and remade […] an unutterably brilliant masterwork.” - Sydney Morning Herald

one two one two | Recovery (Project Arts Centre, 2016/17/18)

Written and directed by Zoe Ní Riordan (Enjoy, Rough Magic SEEDS showcase 2015 and The Well Rested Terrorist, Tiger Dublin Fringe 2014), Recovery is a live staging of a concept pop album exploring a family dealing with life after the crisis. The piece blurs the lines between theatre, dance and a live music gig and was devised in collaboration with dancer Aoife McAtamney (Age of Transition, Tiger Dublin Fringe 2016) and with my co-performers Peter Coonan (Love/Hate), Maud Ní Riordan (The Well Rested Terrorist, Tiger Dublin Fringe 2014 and Maud In Cahoots) and Aoife Spratt (Republic of Telly). Recovery premiered at Project Arts Centre in 2016, was revived as part of Live Collision in 2017, and was awarded The Romilly Walton Masters Performance Award (2017), which included two performances at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris in 2018. Most recently, Recovery was revived as part of an Irish national tour, including dates in Galway, Cork and Belfast (2018), supported by The Arts Council.

Written / directed by: Zoe Ní Riordáin

Performers: Stephen Quinn, Maud Ní Riordáin, Peter Coonan, Aoife Spratt

Movement direction: Aoife McAtamney

Sound Design: Jack Cawley

Set Design: Ger Clancy

Lighting Design: IIo Tarrant

Projection Design: Néill O’Dwyer

Voice Director: Robbie Blake

Producer: Hugh Farrell

Supported by the Arts Council, Project Arts Centre and Live Collision International Festival.

Praise for Recovery:

“Stephen Quinn can be plaintive and wry all at once.” – DRAFF Magazine

“Insane. Electrifying. Intense.” – Pure Mzine

Winner of the Romilly Walton Masters Performance Award 2017, awarded by the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.

Gays Against The Free State (Smock Alley Boys School, 2016)

Written by Oisín McKenna (Grindr: A Love Story, Tiger Dublin Fringe 2013) and influenced by Primetime Investigates and the Reeling In The Years 1980s boxset, Gays Against The Free State is a show about LGBTQ+ activism today and republican activism in the past. It had its initial premiere as part of Tiger Dublin Fringe, 2016. In this production, I played both a drag queen version of Miriam O’Callaghan, presiding over a debate about gay assimilation, and a Christian Brother enraged during the centenary year of the 1916 Rising.

Direction: Colm Summers

Performers: Lenny Buckley, Eavan Gaffney, Sian Ní Mhuirí, Stephen Quinn and Oisín McKenna.

Scenic Design: Eugenia Genunchi

Costume Design: Sorcha Ní Fhloinn

Composer: Séamus Ryan

Lighting Design: Tilly Taylor

AV Design: Hugo Lau

Production Manager: David Doyle

Stage Manager: Jennifer Aust

Producer: Oisín McKenna

Praise for Gays Against the Free State:

“the bristling sincerity is [...] an undoubted strength. You leave the space whistling the message.” – The Irish Times

“a brilliantly thought-provoking excavation.” - Meg.ie

Nominated for the Judge’s Choice Award at Tiger Dublin Fringe 2016.