DAN FISHBACK IS ALIVE, UNWELL, AND LIVING IN HIS APARTMENT is a rock musical theater song cycle about a chronically ill gay bitch trapped at home during a time of global fascism and a mass-disabling pandemic, wondering how to spend the rest of his life living in a nightmare.
Dan Fishback has been making theater and music in NYC since 2003. His musical The Material World, which found a family of Jewish socialist immigrants confronting the promise of Soviet utopianism in the 1920s, was called "the best downtown musical in years" by Time Out New York in 2012. His 2009 play You Will Experience Silence, which framed the Chanukah story in the context of the Iraq War, was called "a forceful, often hilarious reflection on the politics of American occupation" by the Village Voice. Fishback's 2011 solo performance thirtynothing confronted the then-under-discussed history of the early AIDS epidemic, and sought to understand the meaning of gay mass death for gay men who were children in those terrifying years. In 2013, spurred by the political questions inherent in his thirtynothing project, Fishback founded The Helix Queer Performance Network–a programming platform designed to bring queer generations together and redress inequities in the world of queer arts and culture. He directed Helix's slate of intergenerational festivals, workshops and public events through the platform's conclusion in 2020, including La MaMa Experimental Theater's annual festival La MaMa's Squirts: Generations of Queer Performance, which continues today, now curated by Alexander Paris. Fishback has released several albums, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. His most recent release, Ill I - Laughing With Lizards, features songs from his upcoming theater event, Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell & Living in His Apartment. Fishback has had myalgic encephalomyelitis (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS) since 2009.
Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell & Living in His Apartment seeks to welcome audiences who are often not included in performance, and reaches toward a universe where accessing such a welcome is no struggle at all. The performance uses an approach called Integrated Access, in which access is creatively structured into the core of the show, and is tied to the show's values and purpose. All-access will be open, meaning that the full audience experiences the access-rich environment of the show. Audio descriptions will be featured throughout, and the full production will be open-captioned. The audience will also be asked to mask, which is a part of the access infrastructure. The show contains themes of pandemics, chronic illness, isolation, genocide, and collective care, and so we ask the audience to protect each other, as well as the performers, with this material act of solidarity.
MASKS ARE REQUIRED FOR THIS PERFORMANCE.
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Photo Credit: Sammy Tunis