Taylor Mac visited The Late Show With Stephen Colbert October 29 to talk about the upcoming West Coast tour of Holiday Sauce. The performance piece is the latest installment in judy's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music project, in which the artist explores the popular music catalog from 1776 to the present day through a queer lens.
Mac, a MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient, wrote the show prior to Donald Trump鈥檚 election to office; Colbert wanted to know if it has since been updated to reference him. 鈥淚f something is threatening to take the story away from the storyteller, you have to incorporate that threatening thing into the story at all costs or else nobody pays attention to the story,鈥� judy (Mac's preferred gender pronoun) said. 鈥淪o we have to incorporate Donald Trump into the story, but we can't let him be the lead, right? We're the lead.鈥�
Mac is set to make judy's Broadway debut as a playwright this spring with the new play, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, starring Andrea Martin and Nathan Lane.
But before Mac's words take the Broadway stage, judy performed Patti Smith鈥檚 "People are the Power," "because until justice gets back into the world鈥攐r into the world for the first time鈥攚e should just be singing that to close every show.鈥�