Tim Miller
SEASON 19 | NOVEMBER 2006
Tim Miller's: 1001 Beds
Written and Performed by Tim Miller
Presented by the VORTEX
A raucous and rowdy exploration of Miller's adventures in a performer's life fiercely lived in his travels through love, politics and art. From a gay teen's head-on collision with life in a sleazy hotel across the street from the Hollywood Bowl to an ecstatic vision of a sex-positive future on a mattress in a police holding cell, Miller's 1001 BEDS is a fiercely funny, sexy and inspiring story about the transforming power of art and the richness of gay identity lived out loud. Tim Miller: "I was doing the math recently and I figured that if I continue to tour as a performer for another twenty years, I will end up sleeping in at least 1000 hotel beds in my lifetime on the road. For maximum poetic oomph, let's say 1001 BEDS! Yikes! It's a kinky and funny journey thru the beds and hotels and life on the road as a traveling salesman- oops I mean a traveling performance artist!"
Tim Miller has worked at the intersection of performance, politics, and identity, using his personal experiences to create entertaining but pointed explorations of life as a gay American man-from the perils and joys of sex and relationships to the struggles of political disenfranchisement and artistic censorship. 1001 BEDS, this intimate autobiographical performance collage of Miller's professional and personal life, reveals one of the celebrated creators of a crucial contemporary art form and a tireless advocate for the American dream of political equality for all citizens.
"Tim Miller sings that song of the self which interrogates, with explosive, exploding, subversive joy and freedom, the constitution and borderlines of selfhood. . . . --Tony Kushner, playwright of Angels in America
“Miller's technique - a frisky, half-lidded fidget on high alert to audience energies - gives way to flashes of poetic stillness that demonstrate how gracefully Miller has matured without losing either his inquisitive ardor or wicked humor. An almost shamanic spirit emerges when least expected, with striking immediacy. Think casual seduction concealing urgent consciousness-raiser, and you have the measure of "1001 Beds" and the nonpareil explorer of self and spirit who recounts them with such potent assurance”. --David Nichols, LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Miller’s performance style, which manages to synthesize incantatory segments with looser sections that feel almost improvisational, lends itself well to tracing the ups and downs of someone whose life and loves have often been shoved into the margins of society — and have also provided the key to his art. His travels for justice, art and personal revelation have led Miller into a lot of strange beds, but like most of us, what he wants most is one safe haven to share with one other simpatico soul”
“Miller’s wily wordplay uses the metaphor of the bed as the stage for the beginning and end of life, and the site of the most important human experience in between — love (or perhaps its simulacrum). Miller brought to even his angriest screeds that benign, self-mocking humor that has helped him survive across three contentious decades with his social activism intact. The writing itself is thoroughly engaging; this Whittier-born artist, and his vision of a more humbly democratic and gay-friendly U.S., remains as compelling as ever.”