Taylor Mac

Early life

Mac was born Taylor Mac Bowyer in Laguna Beach, California and raised in Stockton, the child of Joy Aldrich and Vietnam War veteran Lt. Robert Mac Bowyer. Mac's mother opened a private art school that influenced Mac's early aesthetic by embracing collage and teaching students to build from mistakes rather than attempt to erase them. Mac moved to New York in 1994 to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. After graduation, Mac began working as an actor and wrote the plays The Hot Month (1999), The Levee (2000), and The Face of Liberalism (2003).

Career

Mac's work has been described as a fight against conformity and categorization. It draws on forms such as commedia dell'arte, contemporary musical theater, and drag performance, and Mac has noted Charles Ludlam, the Theater of the Ridiculous, and theatrical history reaching back to Greek theater as professional influences. Mac's work has been performed at New York City's Lincoln Center, the Public Theater, the Sydney Opera House, American Repertory Theatre, Stockholm's Sodra Theatern, the Spoleto Festival, as well as many other venues both in the United States and internationally.

Mac is a self-described "fool" and "collagist" who puts together forms and costumes to create a complex and sometimes contradictory look and sound. Mac has resisted categorization by the press: after being described as Ziggy Stardust meets Tiny Tim, Mac created the show Comparison Is Violence, or the Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook.

Mac toured Europe with the plays The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac and The Young Ladies Of. Mac then developed The Lily's Revenge, combination of "camp extravaganza" and "comic self-deprecation" centered on the hero's journey of a lily that uproots itself to fight against nostalgia. The Lily's Revenge played at HERE Arts Center with Taylor Mac as the Lily.

In 2014, for Mac's performance in the Foundry Theater's production of Bertolt Brecht's Good Person of Szechwan, Mac was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Outstanding Lead Actor Award and the Drama League Distinguished Performance Award. Mac also starred in Classic Stage Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Taylor Mac also created and hosted the political vaudeville Live Patriot Acts: Patriots Gone Wiiiiildd! during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Since at least 2012, Mac and musical director/arranger Matt Ray have been developing A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, a performance that covers music popular in the United States from 1776 to the 2016, with one hour dedicated to each decade with a corresponding costume designed by long-time collaborator Machine Dazzle. This work culminates in a 24-hour performance, with one hour dedicated to each decade. In 2016, Wesley Morris of the New York Times said of the 24-hour concert, "Mr. Mac gave me one of the great experiences of my life. I've slept on it, and I'm sure. It wasn't simply the physical feat. Although, come on: 246 songs spanning 240 years for 24 straight hours, including small breaks for him to eat, hydrate and use the loo, and starting in 1776 with a great-big band and ending with Mr. Mac, alone in 2016, doing original songs on piano and ukulele." In 2017, the performance was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Personal life

Mac prefers judy (lowercase) as a gender pronoun.

Awards and residencies