Taylor Mac, Ibsen Award winner, MacArthur Fellow, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and theater artist, brings their heartfelt spectacular show, Holiday Sauce, to Duke University from December 4–6. In this conversation, Mac shares what audiences can expect from the performance, the show’s unexpected evolution into a tribute to their drag mother, Mother Flawless Sabrina, and why Holiday Sauce ultimately celebrates chosen family and finding the light together as a community.
So I have a holiday show, and we call it Holiday Sauce. I had done this giant show called The 24-Decade History of Popular Music. There are 240 songs of popular music in the U.S. from 1776 all the way to the present. And in that process, I came upon many, many holiday songs for every decade. And so when that show was finished, I thought, “Oh, well, I’ve learned all these holiday songs because I thought we were going to do a decade that would just be holiday songs”. Since there were so many from different decades, I never quite could focus on one decade for a holiday moment. I said, “Oh, I’ll make a holiday show after the show’s done, and that’ll just be a fun little palette cleanser.” And then, as I was making it, my drag mother died.
I suddenly thought, “I don’t want to make a holiday show. I want to make a show that’s a tribute to Mother Flawless Sabrina.” But I was making this holiday show, and so I said, “Oh, this is what I’ll do. Everyone likes to book a holiday show, so I’ll make a holiday show, but really it’ll be a celebration of Mother Flawless.”
But what happened was that it became a holiday show. “Every year I want to celebrate Mother Flawless.” And so we sing these holiday songs, but I talk about Mother Flawless. And what it has become is it’s a show about chosen family. It’s a show about what it means to gather when the least amount of light is on the planet to fill you and keep you warm, and you need other people around you. And if you don’t come from a family that is super loving, then this experience can show you can find a family that can do that for you. And so it’s still a holiday show, but it’s also a celebration of the people that we find along the way that aren’t necessarily blood.
“It’s a show about chosen family. It’s a show about what it means to gather when the least amount of light is on the planet to fill you and keep you warm, and you need other people around you.”
I think if you’d asked me the question of what excites me most about bringing this work to Duke two days ago, I would’ve had a different answer. I think I would’ve had the answer that the world is homogenous, and I want to show people that it’s varied, and art is subversive, and it’s here to change things. And I would’ve had some assumptions about what Duke is and what Durham is.
I think I would’ve come here with the assumption that I’m here doing the good work, I’m here fighting the good fight. I’m trying to move everybody, the slow arc of justice. I’m trying to move them. I’m trying to speed it up a little bit.
The last few days I’ve been here, and it’s been just lovely. I don’t know, it’s just been fun. So I think instead of fighting, I think it would be more that I would want to give people a celebration. I just want to hang out with people and celebrate that we survived, that we are surviving, and that we’re doing more than surviving, we’re thriving.
“I want to give people a celebration. Celebrate that we survived, that we are surviving, and that we’re doing more than surviving, we’re thriving.”
What I want the audience to do is to go away not feeling satisfied with their purchase, but to walk away wanting to wonder about the work and incorporate that wondering into their life for the rest of their life. I don’t think that everyone’s going to think about my show every day for the rest of their life, but that it could pop up into their memory of having had an experience, they see something that reminds them, and then they have a new perspective on it. So I’m always hoping that the audience will change rather than sink into one concept.
But also to answer your question in a more deconstructed way. I do like for people to laugh a lot. I do like for people to have a good time. I do like for people to hook up with each other in the audience. I do like to inspire people to go make love. I do like to inspire people to want to cook someone a big meal. I like to inspire people to see the world with more love and light and empathy than shut isolation and negativity. So yeah, I do have these hopes.
What I want the aduience to walk away with is wonder about the work and incorporating that wondering into their life for the rest of their life.
Silent Night! We do a kind of New Orleans-inspired Silent Night, and it’s very special. I’ll probably do my Christmas with Grandma, which is just me alone on my ukulele. It’s the one song I do by myself, and it’s kind of epic. But yeah, I like having originals in there that I come back to once a year and creating my own little holiday ritual out of it.
Taylor Mac takes on the holidays to celebrate the season in all its dysfunction. “For all those who find caroling, eggnog and enforced family visits destabilizing” (Los Angeles Times)
From December 4–6, Duke Arts presents Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce in the Reynolds Industries Theater—a glittering, heartfelt spectacular that celebrates holidays with chosen family and radical, creative joy. Created by award-winning performance artist …
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