The Performing Arts at Hamilton will present internationally acclaimed performance artist Tim Miller in his latest production, Glory Box on Saturday, April 13, at 8 p.m. at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts. There will be a post-performance discussion immediately after the production in Café Opus.
Named for the Australian equivalent of a hope chest, Glory Box is a funny, sexy, and politically charged exploration of same-sex marriage and the struggle for immigration rights for lesbian and gay bi-national couples. Glory Box recounts the trials Miller has been forced to undergo in trying to keep his Australian partner in the United States. Says Miller, "I want the piece to conjure for the audience a new glory box, a new kind of hope chest, that can be an alternative site for the placing of memories, hopes and dreams of gay people's extraordinary potential for love."
Miller's creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Hailed for his humor and passion, Miller's performances have been presented all over North America and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is the author of the books Shirts & Skin and Body Blows. His solo theater works have been published in the play collections O Solo Homo and Sharing the Delirium.
Since 1990, Miller has taught performance in the theater department at UCLA and the dance program at Cal State LA. He is a co-founder of the two most influential performance spaces in the United States: Performance Space 122 on Manhattan's Lower East Side and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA.
Miller has received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1990, he was awarded a NEA Solo Performer Fellowship, which was overturned under political pressure from the Bush White House because of the gay themes of Miller's work. Miller and three other artists, the so-called "NEA 4", successfully sued the federal government with the help of the ACLU for violation of their First Amendment rights and won a settlement where the government paid them the amount of the defunded grants and all court costs. Though the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1998 to overturn part of Miller's case and determined that "standards of decency" are constitutional criterion for federal funding of the arts, Miller vows "to continue fighting for freedom of expression for fierce diverse voices."
Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students. This performance contains nudity and adult language. All seating is general admission. For more information or to order tickets, call the box office at 859-4331. Box office hours are 1 - 4 p.m. weekdays.
