Jess Conda is a Philadelphia based performance artist. “Too musical theater for rock&roll and too rock&roll for musical theater,” she works regularly as an emcee in Philly’s cabaret scene, most notably as Muff Johnson, rock chanteuse and co-host with The Peek A Boo Revue, the city’s longest running burlesque troupe. Jess was recently seen in Late Night Snacks (2019) and Do You Want A Cookie (2018) with the Bearded Ladies and in Pig Iron Theatre Company’s A HARD TIME (2019), an alt-cabaret love letter to the Patriarchy devised with Jenn Kidwell and Mel Krodman. 2013 Philadelphia Magazine’s “Best Star Power.” Her mother says she’ll never get a husband with a mouth like that.

Mexico City-based Tareke Ortiz is a fully sequenced, horned creature, born from a crack in the imaginary wall between Mexico and the USA. His existential, Latin Noir Cabaret aims to be an ominous, defiant immigrant anthem, a carnivalesque bolero-esque lament that invokes the muted, dashed hopes of those trapped by tyrant borders as well of those imprisoned by their very own notions of romantic love.

Emyne is a 20 years old singer-songwriter, rapper and all around performing artist born and raised in West Philadelphia. Starting as a street performer, busking all around downtown she has come a very long way! Performing in many venues around Philly, including The Kimmel Center, The Clef Club, The Rotunda, Voltage Lounge, World Live Cafe and more! She has also been gifted The amazing opportunity to touch the legendary Apollo Theatre stage in New York City, 3 times as a child star! Emyne has written music for films such as “We Are Black” produced by Ten0OneMedia and theatre performances such as “Black Girl Magic” a musical put together by a dance company called Dance for Nia. Always excited to do work that serves her life purpose, connecting with people around the world and making a difference through music, she is a resilient young woman with undeniable talent, hustle, passion and charm. Always asking herself “What’s Next Emyne?”

Alexandra Tatarsky makes work in the unfortunate in-between zone of comedy, dance, performance art, theater and deluded rant — sometimes with songs. Pieces often incorporate absurdist characters and improvised word play. Current interests include humor & the abyss, self-loathing & complicity, clowns & politics, meaninglessness, hybridity, madness, parades, and acrylic nails. Basically, how words and worlds come together and fall apart. Tatarsky has performed original work and the work of others at venues including: Vox Populi, Werks Barehouse, Judson Church, Skirball, New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Art Space, PSNY, MoMA PS1, The Kitchen, La Mama, The Brick, CPR, Gibney, and many bars. With Ming Lin as Shanzhai Lyric, they publish mini-complications of bootleg t-shirt poems. Writings on hyper-capitalism, mimes, nonsense poetry, and counterfeit culture are forthcoming in ArtReview Asia, Spike, and Garlands.

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).

John Jarboe (she/hers) is a cabaret artist, director, writer, historian, and host serving you revolution, herstory, queer community making, and a whole lot of glitter. She 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. She 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.