Bradford Louryk

Bradford Louryk is an American theater artist and actor. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and educated at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, he is best known for his collaboratively generated solo performance work, which often incorporates multimedia elements and gender reversal in the exploration of its subject matter. This, along with the "intellectual and linguistic complexity" [1] of his work, has led to comparison to Charles Ludlam and Charles Busch, though Louryk has historically received consistent praise for his portrayals of male characters, as well. He is also known for his deeply entrenched and quirky sense of style: "Louryk, tall, dark and handsome in his boho black clothes and colourful bandana - has, at 26, been voted one of New York's most eligible bachelors." [2]

Beginning in July, 2005, Louryk garnered critical acclaim (including a half-page profile in The New York Times) for Christine Jorgensen Reveals, a painstaking recreation of a circa 1958 long-form recorded interview with Christine Jorgensen, one of the first American recipients of gender reassignment surgery, in which "both performers lip-synch, with uncanny precision, to the actual recording... at the same time providing visual counterpart to every phoneme, snort, scratch, or hesitation." [3] Following its critically heralded New York premiere, Christine Jorgensen Reveals played to great acclaim in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Festival Fringe; in Boston, Massachusetts, at the Boston Center for the Arts; and in Dublin, Ireland, at The Project Arts Centre. In 2006, at the age of 28, Louryk was subsequently nominated for and awarded the Drama Desk Award in the category Unique Theatrical Experience, the same category in which Robert Wilson was also nominated. In America, the production also received a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Best Off-Broadway Play, in addition to awards and nominations in Dublin and Boston.

In addition to his work as an artist, Louryk served as founding Artistic Director of Studio 42 from 2001 until 2010, and its philanthropic offshoot, The Starving Artists Award Fund. He has also been listed among New York City's 100 Most Eligible Bachelors by the society publication Gotham Magazine.

Quotes
  • "This piece is all about happy accidents. I didn’t know who she was when I found the recording. I bought it because it looked interesting. And it was very, very expensive."
  • "I’ve never been interested in playing the starving artist. I have a great family. I never wanted for anything. I was taught when I was a child that you give someone else what you’ve got because there’s always more. And I came out of four years at Vassar, for Christsakes, so I never wanted to do the East Village thing. I’m not interested in playing that role because it’s not what I am. I was on a panel... with Taylor Mac and Neo-Futurists, great people, and there was this conversation where people were saying, ’Oh, I’m doing my work for myself; I don’t care if anyone’s there. I want to find my stuff in the garbage and do it in the downstairs of a bar.’ I said, ’Bring me a contract for the Helen Hayes and I’ll move in tomorrow!’ Give me a Broadway house with a cushy dressing room and a couple of dressers and I’m there. If people aren’t seeing it, if you’re not reaching the greatest audience possible, what’s the point of doing it?"
  • "It would be ridiculous to say I’m not interested in gender, because obviously I am, but more so than gender, I love the challenge of playing the opposite of what I am."
  • "I don’t love naturalism. I think it’s so boring. I could sit in my living room and have a conversation... And I think our playwrights' wanting to bring television audiences into the theater is noble, because we need people to fill seats, but I think that’s undercutting what the theater can do. I love a performance style, when I’m actually using my own voice, that is more out of the Comédie-Française, really hyper-theatrical and declamatory. That’s so much more fascinating."

References
  1. Foley, Helene; Edith Hall (Editor); Fiona Macintosh (Editor); Amanda Wrigley (Editor); "Dionysus Since '69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium" in the chapter "Bad Women: Gender Politics in Late Twentieth-Century Performance and Revision of Greek Tragedy"; 2005; Oxford University Press.
  2. McGlone, Jackie; July 14, 2005; "From GI to Glamour Girl"; The Scotsman.
  3. Clay, Carolyn; April 14, 2006; "Pioneer Woman, The Intrigue of Christine Jorgensen" Archived October 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine; The Boston Phoenix.
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