SEASON 22 | JANUARY 2010

Lay of the Land

Written and Performed by Tim Miller
Presented by VORTEX

"Tim Miller sings that song of the self which interrogates, with explosive, exploding, subversive joy and freedom, the constitution and borderlines of selfhood. You think you don't need to hear such singing? You do! You must!” --Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America

“Miller's Lay of the Land enters territory as exhilarating as it is meaningful. Miller lays out his unapologetically renegade viewpoint with exemplary economy and sardonic humor. Marriage equality is the thematic undercurrent against which reminiscences of various activist and performance landmarks coalesce into something larger than the sum of their considerable parts. The final apotheosis stands high in Miller's canon, which, together with the overarching relevance, makes "Lay of the Land" a vivid, must-see achievement”. --David Nichols, The Los Angeles Times

Lay of the Land is Tim Miller's saucy, sharp-knifed look at the State of the Queer Union during a time of trial. Careening from his sexy misadventures while performing in 45 States, to street protests for Marriage Equality, to the electoral assaults on gay folks all over the country, to a grade-school flag monitor, to choking on cheap meat caught in his 10-year old gay boy's throat, Lay of the Land friskily gets at that feeling of gay folks being perpetually on trial, on the ballot, and on the menu! Lay of the Land is a "lay" in all kinds of ways: a sex-assignation, a queer citizenship map, and a narrative ballad with a recurrent refrain! (Miller's favorite way-down-the-list definition for "lay"!)

As the newest of Miller's internationally acclaimed solo performances, Lay of the Land takes on a fierce and funny examination of U.S. citizenship: who eats and who gets eaten. Framed by a “No” on Prop 8 protest in downtown L.A., Miller makes pit stops as Abraham and his gay son Isaac spread out on a L.A. 70's suburban Formica kitchen, the L.A. Courthouse explodes in pink jury summons that call queer identity to judgment, and a vision of a Heimlich Manuever that helps us get out of this mess!

VORTEX Repertory Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.