Blacktop Highway John Fleck

About This Show

With “irrepressible energy and engaging presence” (NY Times), ground-breaking performer & one of the infamous NEA-4, John Fleck has been a prominent theatrical figure since grant funding for his work was questioned in a lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990. The LA Times raved, Fleck “is an expert at riling the unconscious & releasing the repressed like bats in a belfry.”

Hot off a critically-acclaimed run in LA, Blacktop Highway comes to Dixon Place for its East Coast premiere. A horrifying, hysterical tale of taxidermy, transformation & caged creatures, this reinvented gothic horror screenplay is staged onto Fleck’s body. Inspired by classic horror cinema & Freud’s theories of mind & ego, Fleck weaves video with theatrical movement & remarkable vocal qualities, leading the audience into a darkly hilarious world.

This Dixon Place commission is made possible with public funds from NY State Council on the Arts with the support of Gov Andrew Cuomo & the NY State Legislature, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

About the Artist

John Fleck is a performance artist & actor based in Los Angeles. In 1990, he & 3 other performance artists, now known as the NEA-4, were denied funding by the National Endowment for the Arts culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving freedom of speech and charges of obscenity.

John’s previous show Mad Women was nominated for a Bessie Award & won the 2012 LA Weekly Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Other critically acclaimed solo shows include: Side EFFlecks May Include, Johnny’s Got a Gun, Nothin’ Beats Pussy, Dirt, me, A Snowball’s Chance in Hell, Blessed are all the Little Fishes, Psycho Opera & I got the He-Be-She-Be’s.

His self-scripted work has been funded by the Getty, the NEA, Franklin Furnace, the Jerome Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, LA Cultural Affairs, Durfee & the Center for Cultural Innovation. He has won 4 LA Critics Circle Awards, 8 DramaLogue, 6 LA Weekly & 2 Backstage West awards, all for outstanding performance. His past performance venues include the ICA (London); ICgA (Boston); The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh); The New Museum, The Public Theater, The Guggenheim Museum, PS-122, Second Stage, La Mama, Dixon Place & Joe’s Pub (NYC); The Broad Stage, The Getty Museum, Cal Plaza, MOCA, Taper 2 & Bootleg (LA).

Friday, November 4 at 7:30pm

(Additional Dates: Fridays & Saturdays, November 5, 11, 12, 18, 19 at 7:30pm)

General Admission
$18

Students / Seniors
$15

Estimated Runtime
75 minutes

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Credits

Written and performed by
John Fleck*

Directed by
Randee Trabitz

Video design by
Heather Fipps

Costume design by
Christina Wright

Puppet design by
Christine Papalexis

Original lighting design by
Anne Militello

Photo Credit
Rafael Hernandez

*John Fleck appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association

Equity Approved Showcase
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