Award winning performance artist, Robbie McCauley, took to LUMBERYARD’s stage last night with a NYC premiere of Sugar.

In it, the second performance of our 2018 Festival In the City, McCauley shared with the audience her experience of living with “a little bit of sugar” – diabetes.

Directed by Maureen Shea with music by Chauncey Moore and projections by Mirta Tocci, the piece considers sugar through many ages, from slavery to colonialism to American mythologies to racism and disease.

About Robbie McCauley

Sugar is also a chronicle of McCauley’s life: from her childhood in the Jim Crow South to later experience as an actress in the vibrant theatre scene of 1960’s-1970’s New York City.

LUMBERYARD is delighted to show the work of an artist whom the Boston Globe has described as being uniquely able to better acquaint audiences with themselves by sharing herself: “Story by story, observation by observation, McCauley builds a striking rapport with the audience…heads nodding, they hang on her words, as if they had come to hear McCauley talk about their lives as well as hers.”

LUMBERYARD in the City Festival

Executive and Artistic Director, Adrienne Willis, shared LUMBERYARD’s satisfaction at being able to connect audiences with work that is as engaging as McCauley’s.

“We’re excited to collaborate with performance artists like those featured in this years Festival in the City, whom we believe are shaping the future of contemporary performance in the United States,” she said.

McCauley, who is a Bessie and an OBIE Award winner, recently received the IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Award for Solo Performance.

She was previously selected as a 2012 United States Artists Ford Foundation Fellow, has been an active presence in the American avant-garde theatre for several decades.

Festival ticket information

Join us through Feb.3 to see Sugar, tickets are available here.

The Festival closes with a world premiere of Dana Reitz’s Latitude, Feb. 8-10.

Photograph provided by Kate Enman.