Taylor Mac's "Whitman in the Woods" comes as an exploration of one of the America's most prolific writers; Walt Whitman.
The project marks the debut of Mac as the first artist-in-residence for ALL ARTS, a new position for the multimedia platform with a "devotion to numerous artistic genres."
Mac performs several of Whitman's poems outdoors and in drag, with judy's (Mac's preferred pronoun) flair for the theatrical. The piece is intended to be light and comedic, and brings a queer lens to the poet's work (one which is often overlooked). Of this, Mac says "Like many others, my introduction to Whitman happened indoors and in an academic, humorless, and heterosexual lens. Whitman was so clearly in love with the outside world and with men, and he had a unique sense of humor. This is our way of finding the fairy in Whitman, by which I mean, the queer and the wood spirit. I sing America indeed."
Mac collaborated with Noah Greenberg, a cinematographer making his directorial debut with "Whitman in the Woods." The project was produced with Pomegranate Arts.
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