2018: The Travisian Year in Review

I’m tempted to dub 2018 “the smallest year ever”, for it was a year in which, for a variety of reasons, I was compelled to “work small”, to perform close-up magic as it were, working on solo pieces, in intimate venues, or to act in other folks’ shows, and the like. Because the biggest moment for me happened just a couple of days ago, this year I’d like to look at my “look back” backwards:

December: Earlier this week my Now This Opinion piece was published to social media, produced by Allan Piper, a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign. It draws from, and elaborates upon a piece I wrote for the New York Theatre Review in 2010, as well as my Keynote Address at the 2017 Congress of Curious Peoples. So far around 150,000 people have viewed it, big numbers for me!

November: Played David Ferrie in Jason Trachtenburg’s musical Me and Lee at Sidewalk...the room was packed to the rafters! It was a special night, one I’ll always remember especially in light of the fact that it may be my last performance there. (See here as to why). On the bright side, this show is coming back to Dixon Place on January 24. More information and tickets here. 

October: Played the title role in Edward Einhorn’s The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley in The New York International Fringe Festival. I do believe I worked harder on this role than any other I’ve played, including the ones in my own plays (mostly because I had the rare opportunity to focus entirely on the role, which was a worthy one, and a good one for me!) Read some great press about the show here!

August:West Fest, our tribute festival in honor of Mae West. The keynote event was a daylong symposium at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. Thanks, Michele Gouveia, for being our Chair.

August/September: I gave two Coney Island talks, one at Coney island USA on the history of burlesque (with guest artist Aubrey Marie Parsons), and one on behalf of CIUSA at a senior home in Little Neck.

June:My work-in-progress solo show Tall Tales was in the Brick’s Festival of Lies. This was an early, truncated version — I have plans to trot a new iteration in 2019, so I hope you can check it out.

May: I performed Folsom at 50, my tribute to the Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison album for its 50th anniversary at Dixon Place. I was joined onstage by Noah Diamond and Amanda Sisk, making it a very special night for me!

March:  Moved from my long time home in Brooklyn to nearby suburban Great Neck, NY. It was a major life change but one side benefit was ample space to rehearse these solo performances. A new experiment that worked! (Indeed I am rehearsing a new solo performance for January even as we speak).

And, as always I published dozens of pieces in the NYC Community Media family of papers (The Villager/ Chelsea Now. Downtown Express and Gay City News) including an interview with Bill Irwin I’m very proud of. I say ‘as always” but that no longer applies actually. New owners have taken over those papers. After nearly a decade I won’t be writing for them any more. But that’s more than okay!

This year I really stepped up blogging here on Travalanche both in terms of quality and in terms of quantity! As we are about to embark on a new year, I hope you will consider supporting it by joining my Patreon campaign here. Even a dollar a month would help body and soul!

As of this writing I am cooking up big activities to take place throughout the year. What’s coming up in the short term: I have three events in January:  Necromancers of the Public Domain (Jan 14); as well as the next performance of Me and Lee at Dixon Place (Jan 24.); and the horror film I am in, The Moose Head Over the Mantel will be available in DVD, Blu-Ray and digital drops (Jan. 29), with availability via streaming platforms later in the year. And there is much else in the works for the rest of the year, but we’ll save the announcements on those for when the ink is dry.

Until then, I hope you had a happy and healthy year — and will have a better one in 2019!