Who: Barb Morrison, Daphne Rubin-Vega
What: Reading, conversation, and audience Q&A
Where: The Wild Project, 195 East Third St. between Aves. A & B
When: Thursday, July 11, $16, 7:00
Why: “the universe has a way of putting us in our place. a way of commanding what we pretend is destiny, what we like to call the journey and what we fool ourselves into believing is karma,” Barb Morrison writes at the beginning of her memoir, bottoming for god. “but the fact of the matter is we’ve already conspired with this entity, this force, this all knowing being, this GOD (or what EVER you wanna call it.) we already made a pact in the board room in between lives. we’ve already sat amongst our judges and jurors, our spirit guides, our guardian angels, our circle of souls and agreed to collaborate on whatever theater piece will take us to a higher consciousness. whatever decisions we THINK we’re making will move us up or down this mortal coil only because it was already agreed to. it was written before we zipped up these space suits. it was litigated at the table where our greatest enemies and best friends tried on costumes to see who will play which role this time around.”
My wife and I have known the Schenectady-born Morrison for many years, on a personal and professional level. A music producer, songwriter, film composer, football fan, multi-instrumentalist, former Gutterboy member, and mentor who has worked with Blondie, Rufus Wainwright, Franz Ferdinand, Asia Kate Dillon, Rachael Sage, Scissor Sisters, and many others, Morrison digs deep in the book, which is billed as “a story about gender euphoria, sobriety, old skool NYC, true love, past lives, and coming home,” in such chapters as “that fucking belt,” “fourteenth & third,” “the sound of a smile,” “shell shock,” and “hysterical and historical.”
Morrison’s summer book tour takes them July 11 to the Wild Project, where they will be joined by two-time Tony-nominated Panamanian American actress Daphne Rubin-Vega, who originated the roles of Mimi Marquez in Rent and Lucy in Jack Goes Boating and has appeared in such other shows as Anna in the Tropics, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Les Misérables as well as on such television series as Smash, Katy Keene, and Hazbin Hotel. The New Jersey–based Morrison will read excerpts from the book, then sit down for a conversation with Rubin-Vega, followed by an audience Q&A. Tickets are $16; signed books will be available for sale.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]