Radiant Baby is a musical about Keith Haring, who was an artist and social activist in New York City. The music was composed by Debra Barsha, with lyrics by Ira Gasman, Stuart Ross, and Debra Barsha. It was based on Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography (1991) by John Gruen.
Radiant Baby was partially developed at the 1998 O'Neil Music Theater Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. It had its New York premiere at The Public Theater in a 2003 production directed by George C. Wolfe with Daniel Reichard in the title role. Kate Jennings Grant [1] and Billy Porter also appeared in the New York production. [2] [3]
Keith Allen Haring was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness. In addition to solo gallery exhibitions, he participated in renowned national and international group shows such as documenta in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial in New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Venice Biennale. The Whitney Museum held a retrospective of his art in 1997.
Keith Ian Carradine is an American actor. In film he is known for his roles as Tom Frank in Robert Altman's Nashville, E. J. Bellocq in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, and Mickey in Alan Rudolph's Choose Me. On television he is known for his roles as Wild Bill Hickok on the HBO series Deadwood, FBI agent Frank Lundy on the Showtime series Dexter, Lou Solverson in the first season of FX's Fargo, Penny's father Wyatt on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and U.S. President Conrad Dalton on the CBS political drama Madam Secretary.
Julee Ann Cruise was an American singer and actress, known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She released four albums beginning with 1989's Floating into the Night.
Baby Snakes is a film which includes footage from Frank Zappa's 1977 Halloween concerts at the Palladium in New York City. It also includes backstage antics from the crew, and stop motion clay animation from award-winning animator Bruce Bickford.
Ann Magnuson is an American actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer. She was described by The New York Times in 1990 as "An endearing theatrical chameleon who has as many characters at her fingertips as Lily Tomlin does".
Aaron Lohr is an American actor.
Andre Pierre Charles is an American artist born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in the Bronx. Charles is best known as a 1980s pioneer of the New York City graffiti art movement and for his influence on New York City nightclub and youth culture.
Ira Gasman was an American playwright, lyricist, and newspaper columnist. He was nominated for both Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his contributions to The Life, the 1997 Broadway musical that had its first production at off-Broadway's Westbeth Theatre seven years earlier.
Judy Rifka is an American artist active since the 1970s as a painter and video artist. She works heavily in New York City's Tribeca and Lower East Side and has associated with movements coming out of the area in the 1970s and 1980s such as Colab and the East Village, Manhattan art scene.
Kimberly Akimbo is a play written in 2000 by David Lindsay-Abaire. Its title character is a lonely teenage girl suffering from a disease similar to progeria, that causes her to age four and a half times as fast as normal, thus trapping her inside the frail physical body of an elderly woman. She meets another misfit and the two form an attachment to one another that borders on attraction, but their situation is not helped by Kimberly's rapidly deteriorating health. Soon, Kimberly's family gets mixed up in some crazy money schemes, and the family is emotionally destroyed.
Tullio Francesco DeSantis, also known as Tullio, is an American contemporary artist, writer, technologist, and teacher. His work is informed by ancient and contemporary philosophy, science, and the relationship between art and life.
Kevin Michael McHale is an American actor and singer. Formerly one of the two lead vocalists of the boy band NLT, McHale is best known for his role as Artie Abrams in the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee, for which he was nominated for a Grammy Award, three Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series and two Teen Choice Awards. From 2014 to 2016, he hosted the British panel show Virtually Famous on E4. In 2019, McHale and Glee co-star Jenna Ushkowitz began a podcast called Showmance, where they recap Glee episodes and interview Glee cast and crew members, as well as other people. The podcast was rebranded in 2022 as And That's What You Really Missed on iHeartRadio.
Theodora Skipitares is a New York–based interdisciplinary artist. Trained as a sculptor and theater designer, she began creating autobiographical solo performances in the late 1970s. She moved on to examine diverse social and political themes using a wide variety of puppets, of all sizes. She has created 26 original works featuring various forms of puppetry, original commissioned music, video, and documentary texts.
Tower is a mural by American artist Keith Haring executed in 1987. The mural covers the exterior of a preserved stairwell from the now demolished building of the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, France. It is one of two public murals in France by the artist.
Crack Is Wack is a mural created in 1986 by American artist and social activist Keith Haring. Located near the Harlem River Drive in East Harlem, the mural serves as a warning against crack cocaine use, which was rampant in major cities across the United States during the mid to late 1980s. As a symbol of anti-drug activism, Crack Is Wack commemorates Haring's powerful sociopolitical presence as an artist and remains a part of New York City's repertoire of iconic public art.
Angel Ortiz, known publicly as LA II or LA2, is an American graffiti artist and visual artist of Puerto Rican descent from the Lower East Side who is known for his collaborations with Keith Haring. Ortiz's contributions to Haring's work, including his trademark graffiti infill squiggles, have notably been obscured by the art establishment, which has prompted Ortiz's supporters, including artist, photographer, and videographer Clayton Patterson, to publicly uplift Ortiz's work and ask for credit to be given.
Andy Mouse is a series of silkscreen prints created by American artist Keith Haring in 1986. The character Andy Mouse is a fusion between Disney's Mickey Mouse and Andy Warhol. The series consists of four silkscreen prints on wove paper, released in an edition of 30 per colorway, all signed and dated in pencil by Haring and Warhol.
Kimberly Akimbo is a 2021 musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, and lyrics and book by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is based on Lindsay-Abaire's 2001 comedy of the same name.
Untitled Series (with Sean Kalish) is an untitled and unordered series of eleven untitled etchings, drawn between 1989 and 1990 by Keith Haring in collaboration with Sean Kalish, a 9-year-old patron of the Pop Shop. Also referred to as Untitled (w Sean Kalish) or Untitled, 1989.
Drawing the Line: A Portrait of Keith Haring is a 1989 American short documentary film about artist Keith Haring. Produced and directed by Elisabeth Aubert, and narrated by Gina Belafonte, the film highlights Haring's emergence from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s, the mass marketing of his work and the opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.