A person in a leather jacket reads from a book into a microphone onstage, while two shirtless people stand in the background with a projected image behind them.

Prep School: Underneath The Skin

In this NYU Skirball commission, John Kelly takes on the incredible true story of Samuel Steward – history professor, tattoo artist, and sexual renegade, who numbered Thorton Wilder, Gertrude Stein, and Alfred Kinsey among his confidantes. Learn more about Kelly’s work, and the show.

RELATED EVENTS
  • Sat Oct 12, 2019

John Kelly: Underneath the Skin

  • Commission
  • Dance
  • Theater
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indefinite article

Marvin J. Taylor on Underneath the Skin

“I write for myself and strangers,” Gertrude Stein says on the opening page of The Making of Americans. I feel like I might be doing the same thing and for the same reasons. With Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the smiley-faced, super smart, married gay man winning over the hearts of the media and the voting public, who can write “In Praise of Shame,” as Bosie Douglas once did? Sam Steward could – and did. 

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A person with short hair, neatly groomed mustache, and sharp features wears a dark suit with a white ruffled collar, posing against a plain dark background.

GET INTO IT

Concept video for “Underneath the Skin”

GET THEE TO THE LIBRARY

Recommended readings to accompany the Indefinite Article by Marvin J. Taylor.

  • Phil Andros, Stud. Alyson Books,1993.
  • Debra A. Moddelmog and Martin Joseph Ponce (Editors), Samuel Steward and the Pursuit of the Erotic Sexuality, Literature, Archives. Ohio State University Press, 2017.
  • Justin Spring and Sam Steward, An Obscene Diary: The Visual World of Sam Steward. Elysium Press/Antinous Press, 2010.
  • Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
  • Sam Steward and Jeremy Mulderig (editor), Philip Sparrow Tells All: Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist. University of Chicago Press, 2015.

OFFICE HOURS

October 14, 2019: Ann Pellegrini interviews John Kelly about “Underneath the Skin”

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‘Artists Are Warriors’: An Interview With John Kelly, a Performer Outside of Time

John Kelly is a downtown–New York legend, an unclassifiable performer who has embodied figures as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Egon Schiele, and Caravaggio… a self-described “range queen.”

The Village Voice | February 26, 2018(opens in a new tab)

Being Joni

Given Kelly’s thirty-year career as a painter, opera singer, actor, fashion illustrator, tightrope walker, musician, and ballet dancer, it’s also easy to understand his mild frustration at being reduced to the cross-dresser who “does” Joni.

The New Yorker | August 3, 2009(opens in a new tab)

BASED ON A TRUE STORY

Learn more about the life & times of Samuel Steward (1909-1993) – aka Phil Andros – aka Phil Sparrow. Or go to the source: Steward’s collected papers are available at in the archives at Yale.

EXTRA CREDIT

“Read your history, as much as you can”: this charge concludes “Finding Stonewall,” Alexander Chee’s brief account of coming of age as an AIDS activist in the 80s, with limited understanding of the relevance of Stonewall to his own life. He reviews a trio of recent books on Stonewall that helped him contextualize the importance of gay history on contemporary political struggles.

There is no license to be queer, as my friends and I used to say, no exam to pass. That is both a weakness and a strength of this identity, and it has always been this way.

Learn more in our study guide for #Stonewall50.

A neon sign glows red in a dark window, reading “The Stonewall Inn.” Some framed pictures and a dress are faintly visible inside.

Study Guides

Briefs: The Second Coming

Prep School: #Stonewall50

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