MICHAEL KEARNS – Bloodbound

January 26 @ 8:30 pm - 10:00 pm

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The newest full-length play from Los Angeles theatre luminary and legendary artist-activist Michael Kearns, Bloodbound fights for the freedom to love against overpowering and unreasonable odds: familial implosion, interminable and unjustified incarceration, distorted sexual childhood boundaries, and roller coaster rides of mental illnesses starring all four family members – Mommy, Daddy, Older Brother, Younger Brother. Kearns’ play tracks the lives of two misfit brothers who are destined to love in spite of the gnarled realities they cannot avoid sharing. By remembering their past—in some cases, reliving critical, contradictory, and conflicting moments—perhaps the horrific fear of their mutual deaths (whether in a shitty hospital bed or a sweaty prison cell) will lessen as they approach the final curtain. Directed by Mark Bringelson, produced by Ryland Shelton for Moon Mile Run.

In June of 2017, Michael Kearns was awarded in a ceremony at ceremony at Los Angeles City Hall that kicked off the City’s seventh annual Heritage Month. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell were among the city officials who cited Kearns with a Trailblazer Award, alongside Alexandra Billings, Sara Ramirez and Alexei Romanoff. Kearns was specifically acknowledged for more than four decades of combining art and activism in a number of theatrical presentations he was attached to and a number of organizations he founded.

Kearns’ trailblazing reputation includes many firsts: He came out in the mid-Seventies, officially making him “Hollywood’s first openly gay actor” with one foot in the mainstream industry and one foot in the alternative art world. In 1991, he revealed his HIV-positive status on Entertainment Tonight and a few years later, he was the first HIV-positive, single, gay man to adopt. His Black daughter, he says, is “the most important force” in his life.