Alan Reade is a writer and performer whose work examines how body image, language, and mass media are internalized. He examines how individuals in a culture so focused on sex, food, technology, and television can assimilate large cultural ideas into the components of singular identity. His central focus has always been the body--both the literal body and the symbolic body expressed through video talking heads, Barbie dolls, or even images in tarot cards--and how that body is shaped by and is shaping American culture.
Alan's solo and ensemble work has been presented at, among other places, the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, 848 Community Space, Theatre Rhino, and Artists' Television Access (ATA) in San Francisco; the Pyramid Club, The Knitting Factory, Dixon Place, the Cherry Lane Theatre, and A Different Light Bookstore in New York City; and On The Boards, New City Theatre, AFLN Gallery, Tugs, and 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle. One of Alan's latest shows, Bear-A-Go-Go! was featured in the 2001 National Queer Arts Festival, as part of the Best of AIRspace series. This show was developed in summer 1999 at the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco. Alan's performance Touched by a Monster toured internationally from spring to fall of 2002, in conjunction with the release of a CD entitled "4 Seasons in a Day". Alan's most recent performance, BAD GAYS!, also at the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, played to rave reviews in San Francisco in the fall of 2005 and is being made into a film in 2006. Alan has also appeared in two films for Bay Area underground filmmaker Antero Alli. Alan supports the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.
In 1995, a play Alan co-adapted, produced, and directed for the Seattle International Fringe Festival, Bitchy Bitch LIVE! won Best of the Fest. In 1997 and 1998, Alan participated in Emanuel Xavier's reading series at a Different Light Bookstore in New York, "Realness & Rhythms," which later evolved into a fusion between the worlds of spoken-word poetry and Harlem-style drag balls. Alan attended one such event, the House of Xavier Glam Slam in New York City, in December 2001, where he received a trophy for "Best Erotic Poem Read in Underwear or Lingerie."
Alan has staged performances, both solo and with his band idiophone, in Seattle, San Francisco, Monterey, Chicago, New York, Boston, and Buffalo, as well as Sendai, Japan, and Brussels, Belgium. He has mounted multimedia sculptures at the O.K. Hotel Gallery and Tsikal Studios, both in Seattle. His poetry, prose, and journalism have been published in the Seattle Gay News, Guide magazine, ArtsFocus, Skyviews magazine, Possessed! magazine, Blue Stocking, ArtsFusion, Holy Titclamps, and most recently the anthology I Do/I Don't: Queers on Marriage.
Alan's work often uses slides, projected video, props, wigs, and rock music in conjunction with his poems and prose. Alan has participated in workshops with Fred Curchack, Rachel Rosenthal, and Robert Davidson, and he has been performing his written work since 1986.
Here is some press about Alan's work:
Review of "BAD GAYS!" in the EastBay Voice, 2005
Review of "BAD GAYS!" in the Bay Area Reporter, 2005
Review of "Touched by a Monster" in the Columbus Dispatch, 2002
Review of "4 Seasons in a Day" in Midwest Ursine, 2002
Review of "4 Seasons in a Day" in the Bay Area Reporter, 2002
Interview in Performance Poetry Online Magazine, 2000
Interview with Alan About "American Language," 2000
"Bear-A-Go-Go!" Was Gay.net's National "Pick of the Week," 1999
Bearpress Interview with Alan for "Bear-A-Go-Go!," 1999
QueerSF's Review of "Bear-A-Go-Go!," 1999
Northwest On Stage Magazine Interview with Alan, 1993
SGN Review of "TV or Not TV," 1992
Please click the links below for more information on Alan's work.
Alan's Touring
Alan's CD Release
What's Up!--Most Recent News
Performance History
"American Language" Performance Texts
Poems/Songs
Sculpture/Media Work
Video Stills From Performances
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"...television met vaudeville, and the result was refreshingly odd and highly imaginative."
-Tina Jenneray, Northwest On Stage magazine
"...some intelligent cabaret to help us get our bearings on the nebulous 90’s."
-Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times
"This man never takes himself too seriously, but the work he does is serious business indeed."
-Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid, Seattle Gay News
"Alan avoids the all-too-common pitfalls of self-indulgence and insufficiently grounded abstraction. What he does do--with grace and a kind of wicked delightfulness--is mine his own experience in our crazy, mixed-up world, presenting a persona that combines the vulnerability and innocence of the true clown with the spit and savvy of a nineties urbanite."
-Gaen Murphree, Professor of Theatre, Marlboro College
For booking info, or more information about Alan Reade's work, click here to e-mail him.
Alan Egrmayer