“This is going to be some radical shit.” John Jarboe

“Jarboe has made provocation his calling card with an always daringly incendiary brand of queer cabaret whose caginess reaches into everything he does.” Philadelphia Weekly

Philadelphia’s Bearded Ladies Cabaret has some treats for you. Do You Want A Cookie? transforms an old factory to concoct the perfect cabaret confections to satisfy your cravings. Part Great Cabaret Bake-Off, part irreverent romp through cabaret history, the show is at once subversive, joyous, provocative, and communal.

An international cast of cabaret artists perform across two levels of a cavernous space refitted as a seductive nightclub, presenting a live history of cabaret from Le Chat Noir to Weimar nightlife to 21st-century drag.

Do You Want A Cookie? sees the live culmination of a multi-year study by John Jarboe and Sally Ollove of cabaret’s history and evolution — research you can see in The Bearded Ladies’ Digital Fringe offering, The Poison Cookie Jar. After select performances of Do You Want A Cookie? individual artists present extended cabaret acts as Late Night Snacks. Tickets are available for both Do You Want A Cookie? and Late Night Snacks. If you would like to attend the cabaret following Do You Want A Cookie?, make sure to purchase the joint ticket. Only a limited number of joint tickets are available.

Late Night Snacks: Artist Lineup

Sept 8th: Mary Tuomanen + Bridge Markland
Sept 9th: Adrienne Truscott + Cookie Diorio
Sept 12th: Dito van Reigersberg + Machine Dazzle
Sept 13th: Malgorzata Kaspryzcka, Dieter Rita Scholl + John Jarboe
Sept 14th: Messapotamia LeFae, Jess Conda + Daniel Park
Sept 15th: Tareke Ortiz + Cherdonna Shinatra

Do You Want A Cookie? ONLY
$29 general / $20.30 members
$15 student & 25-and-under

Do You Want A Cookie? and Late Night Snacks performance
$35 general / $24 members
$20 student & 25-and-under

Late Night Snacks performance ONLY
$10-15 sliding scale

The all-star cast comes from around the world:  Adrienne Truscott (NYC), Bridge Markland (Berlin), Cherdonna Shinatra (Seattle), Cookie Diorio (Philly),  Gosia Kasprzycka (Paris/Poland), Daniel Park (Philly), Jess Conda (Philly),  Dito van Reigersberg (Philly), Dieter Rita Scholl (Berlin), Mary Tuomanen (Philly), John Jarboe (Philly), Messapotamia LeFae (Philly), Machine Dazzle (NYC) and Tareke Ortiz (Mexico City)

Musicians Jimmy Coleman, Dorie Byrne, Daniel de Jesus, Andrew Nelson, Spiff Weigard

Director and Co-Conceiver* John Jarboe Dramaturg and Co-Conceiver* Sally Ollove Assistant Director Brett Robinson Music Supervisor* Heath Allen Music Director Amanda Morton Associate Group Choreographer Jody Kuehner Production Stage Manager Nic Labadie-Bartz Assistant Stage Manager Maya Neville Installation and Costume Design*  Rebecca Kanach Installation and Costume Design Machine Dazzle Lighting Design Oona Curley Sound Design Liz Atkinson Projection Design Christopher Ash Associate Installation Design Sara Outing Assistant Lighting Design Heather Edney

General Manager* Cynthia Janzen Production Manager*^ Calvin Anderson Company Manager Dan O’Neil Assistant Production Manager Sara Marinich Technical Direction Flannel and Hammer, Lauren Tracy, Joe Daniels Venue Management & Master Electrician Jacks Katz Lighting Operator John Allerheiligen Audio Mixers Waylon Ferrell,
Taylor Jedlinski Projection Operator Michael Long

*Member of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret Staff and/or Company

Lead support for Do You Want A Cookie? was provided by William Penn Foundation.

Major support for The Poison Cookie Jar has been provided to John Jarboe by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

Supported in part by a Bly Creative Capacity Grant from Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).

Additional Support: by The Knight Foundation, The Independence Foundation, The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
Installation: Theater Communications Group, The Network of Ensemble Theaters
Website: Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation

Festival Star Producers
David and Linda Glickstein
Mark & Tobey Dichter
Festival Executive Producers
Lisa Roberts & David Seltzer
Festival Producers
Lawrence Spitz & Carol Klein
Festival Co-Producers
Cat, Annie & Steven Bohnenberger

About The Bearded Ladies Cabaret

The Bearded Ladies Cabaret is an interdisciplinary troupe of artists who reinvigorate and redefine the form of cabaret in the 21st century by fusing it with theater, opera, and dance. They play with nostalgia and humor to question the embedded social messages in popular culture and tackle the politics of gender, identity, and artistic invention with sparkle and wit. Their work has been seen all over Philadelphia including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Eastern State Penitentiary, Opera Philadelphia, the Wilma Theater, and FringeArts and they have brought their cabaret revolution to Miami, New Zealand, Seattle, Paris, Maryland, Delaware and New York City (Ars Nova, La Mama, and Joe’s Pub).

About John Jarboe

John Jarboe (she/he) is a cabaret artist, director, writer, historian, and host serving you revolution, herstory, queer community making, and a whole lot of glitter. He is the founding artistic director of The Bearded Ladies Cabaret. Going back to the interdisciplinary roots of cabaret, Jarboe is transforming opera, cabaret, and live performance from her home in Philadelphia, making work that is insistent on its liveness and interactivity, work that will make you sing, dance, clap and question. He plays host to a community of cabaret misfits from around the world, trying to stitch together the history of and practice of a much needed form.

About Sally Ollove

Sally Ollove (she) is a Philadelphia and Seattle based director and dramaturg, the associate artistic director of Philadelphia’s Bearded Ladies Cabaret, and as far as she knows, the world’s only self-identifying cabaret dramaturg. She believes in art that is silly and audacious, insists on its liveness, asks provocative questions, and provides space for the audience to fill. Formerly the literary manager at Arden Theatre Company, the resident dramaturg of Azuka Theater and programming director at the Rendezvous/Jewelbox Theater, Sally has served as faculty at Rowan University and University of the Arts and holds an MFA from the ART/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. She recently authored an article on cabaret featured in TheaterForum.

Interview with John Jarboe and Sally Ollove

May 2018

FringeArts: What was the initial inspiration for Do You Want A Cookie? and The Poisoned Cookie Jar?

John Jarboe: I realized in 2013 that I was a practicing cabaret artist, but I didn’t really know what cabaret was or where it came from. Since much of my work straddles the personal and the political, I also wanted to know what the political roots of the form were. How was it used in relationship to political and social crises? Who are my ancestors? What did they do?

Sally Ollove: Once we began looking for those answers, we realized pretty quickly that resources were scarce. There are a number of great books about specific moments in cabaret history, but very few that look at the form across geography and time, and none that extend into a close look at what’s happening in cabaret today. We could write a book, but we’re cabaret artists, so we decided the best way to understand the history and the present moment was to explore it through performance.

FringeArts: It seems that the show is important to you in more than a “I just want to do this show” way. Why is that?

John Jarboe: As performers we need to think carefully and responsibly about what we are putting out into the world. The best way to do that is with others. The more heterogeneous the dialogue the better. The Bearded Ladies are bringing together a host of international performers who are all asking the questions: What does it mean to be an artist now? How can our work heal, inspire, reflect, challenge our audiences? How can history and ancestors in the form help us do that?

FringeArts: What have you enjoyed the most about doing this project so far? And what are you looking forward to?

John Jarboe: It is a miracle to get artists and audiences in a room. For a project like this, it is a miracle on a huge scale. I’m looking forward to having everyone in the room. I’m looking forward to the first note we sing.

Excerpt. Read the full interview on the FringeArts Blog.

Further Reading

Dangerous Delight by Gemma Wilson, CityArts

Excerpt:
The goal is to document an art form that has historically existed in the cracks within and between other art forms, often remaining hidden for safety’s sake.

Read the full article