The Stars Align for One Rare Night in N.Y. – LGBTQ Theater, Music & Cabaret

Watch Nationwide on YouTube Live: World Premiere Saturday, August 15 www.DifferentStars.live

Starring James Jackson, Jr. of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons.

Victoria Huston-Elem star of first national tours and regional productions FindingNeverland, Into The Woods, Sunset Boulevard and The Addams Family.

Danielle Buonaiuto: co-founder of ChamberQUEER and experimental vocal duo REXDuo.

Karl Saint Lucy: featured on John Cameron Mitchell’s Anthem: Homunculus. Composer of F#@ing Identical Twins at Upright Citizens Brigade in N.Y. and L.A.

Co- Produced by Karl Saint Lucy and Chamber QUEER: programming queer artists and composers, and highlighting under-represented queer figures in classical music.

What’s on the other side of queer intimacy gone awry? How do these emotions collide during time spent alone in quarantine? 

When James opens a box of artifacts from his first breakup, after months of self-isolation during Covid-19, he reckons with memories that haunt him of his first love gone awry.

Bronx-based composer Karl Saint Lucy presents Different Stars: A Reckoning with Time, Trauma and Circumstance on the evening of Saturday, August 15 at 7:00 p.m.(EDT).

Co-produced by Karl Saint Lucy and ChamberQUEER, the world premiere will be live-streamed on YouTube Live and stars James Jackson, Jr.(Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons), Danielle Buonaiuto, Victoria Huston-Elem, and Karl Saint Lucy, with direction by Raquel Cion and costumes by David Quinn. Preview two of the songs: 

“I’m Your Underwood” (performed by Victoria Huston-Elem) at https://youtu.be/MGqtLCpfkEM

“Cancer,” (performed by Karl Saint Lucy) at https://youtu.be/zWta4aO7rhk

Conceived during the life-changing aftermath of Saint Lucy’s first breakup in 2011, Different Stars is a subset of more than 40 songs written in grief. 

For this condensed, 40-minute version, twelve of the songs are set in the present day during the events of the pandemic.

They become a reckoning with time, trauma, and circumstance.In a performance twist, Saint Lucy decided to play the role of his ex for this production.

The songs, composed and written by Karl Saint Lucy (including the works of William Shakespeare), represent a singular queer personal journey from trauma to hopefulness, with stylistic influence from Leonard Bernstein, Rufus Wainwright, Joni Mitchell, and Joan as Policewoman.

James (played by James Jackson, Jr.), unsatisfied at how he’s spent his time in quarantine, opens a heretofore unopened box of artifacts left over from his broken up relationship with Renaud. As James pieces through the items, the three other characters appear in his memory: Renaud (played by Karl Saint Lucy), and the lesbian couple Laurenand Olympia (played by Danielle Buonaiuto and Victoria Huston-Elem). They challenge him, support him, and ultimately help James to develop a new outlook on a relationship that’s kept him from fully participating in life for the better part of a decade.

Watch live tonight at https://www.differentstars.live