buy music
13 Nov 2011

Desiree hosts the 3rd Annual New York Neo-Futurist Benefit honoring THE MOTH

Upcoming Gigs No Comments

NYNF Honors The Moth

The New York Neo-Futurists’ award-winning “Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind” is in its 8th year of an open-ended, 50-week-a-year run.  We have written over 2,500 plays for “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” and created and produced 7 full-length live productions – including Locker #4173b, which received the New York Innovative Theatre Award for “Outstanding Performance Art” and “The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill”, which received rave reviews in the New York Post, New York Magazine, the New Yorker and was Charles Isherwood’s Critic’s Pick in the New York Times this September.

We are a theater force to be reckoned with.  A force for Change.  A force for Chance.  A force for Chaos.

And this year, we honor The Moth:

Join us at the Maritime Hotel Monday, November 14th, for swanky drinks, dress and entertainment.  Oh yeah, and me, looking like a Hot Pocket.

 

13 Nov 2011

Desiree in Performa 11 – November 18 & 19

Uncategorized No Comments

Performer and Filmmaker Wu Tsang

The new Visual Art Performance Biennial returns to NYC with a fantastic new piece conceived and directed by Los Angeles-based artist Wu Tsang with Travis Chamberlain of the New Museum: Full Body Quotation.

The piece is a deconstruction of interviews from the seminal Queer/Trans documentary “Paris is Burning”. Major figures from the documentary on New York City’s Ballroom Circuit, including documentarian Jennie Livingston herself are celebrated, scrutinized, paired with and pitted against each other to call into question the authenticity of narrative, self-presentation, and intention.

Oh yeah, I’m in it. And I’m FABULOUS!

This Friday & Saturday November 18 & 19 @7PM

For More Information: http://www.newmuseum.org/events/574

14 Sep 2011

Summer is back on!

Uncategorized No Comments

Hey All,

I’d like to be the first to welcome me back to the USA and summer-like weather from my trip around the UK and Europe. It was a fantastic 5 weeks, with well-reviewed and attended shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and perhaps one of my favorite ever performances of 52 Man Pickup in Amsterdam. Check back here as I update the site with more info, pictures, reviews and upcoming gigs. As well as some new video projects that I am excited to kick off. Can’t wait to hear what you’ve all been up to as well!

29 Aug 2011

“52″ hosted by Greg Shapiro, in Amsterdam Sept. 6, Griffioen Theatre, 20:30

Uncategorized No Comments

Come see Desiree perform “52 Man Pickup” in Amsterdam on 6 September at the Griffioen Theatre at 20:30.  Click here for tickets.

 

29 Aug 2011

Desiree Burch in Amsterdam on 09/06/10

Upcoming Gigs No Comments
29 Aug 2011

Awesome Review for 52 in Edinburgh

Uncategorized No Comments

Check out this great review of 52 at the Fringe.

Theatre review: 52 Man Pickup

4/54/54/54/54/5
By Fiona Shepherd
Published: 18/8/2011

IT CAN be tedious enough listening to someone talking about one of their sexual conquests, let alone one for every card in the deck. But New York-based performer Desiree Burch is such a funny, frank, eloquent, entertaining and perceptive raconteur that it was a pleasure, of sorts, to hear all the gory, explicit details of her ample carnal encounters in 52 Man Pickup.

Burch didn’t lose her virginity until she was in her twenties but made up for lost time on her arrival in New York. These days her diverse record of sexual experiences makes Sex and the City seem like a Disney production.

Each card in her pack corresponds to a different individual she has slept with, their performance/relationship rated according to the number on the card. Aces high, of course. Plus more than her fair share of jokers.

Burch then plays a succession of card games and whichever cards come up determines the shagging stories she will share. So each performance of the show will be slightly different, according to how the cards fall. It’s a contrived device but Burch ensures a seamless flow of anecdotes.

For all the hilarity she finds in her predicaments, some of her character appraisals are positively poetic in their insight. Others are simply pithy – “never trust an Elvis Costello fan” is her advice. Yet she’s a helpless fool when it comes to guys called Dave, so Daves beware – or start queuing.

Burch is a force of nature, utterly upfront (that’s a tight corset she’s poured herself into) about her preferences but also her vulnerabilities. She expects a little quid pro quo and attempts to coax sexual revelations from her audience. By the time she demands some (harmless) participation from the guys then the girls, you will feel you know her sufficiently well to comply with her wishes. There’s even a special prize for the lucky lady who wins the final showdown.

23 Jun 2011

Help Desiree Take Her Career to the Next …

Uncategorized No Comments

~FUND 52~
Help Desiree take her solo career to the next…

I’ll give it you you short and sweet:
It’s time for me to take my performing “to the next level” as it were.

In order to do this, I am taking 52 Man Pickup to the Edinburgh Fringe.  I am taking this show because it is a tried and true product with wide appeal.  To augment these things, I am producing the show in a known venue with PR support to get paying and important butts in seats.  The goal is to get international booking and representation for this and future theater and on-camera work.

For the past 10 years I have been doing this kind of work – producing high quality, insightful, daring and important solo work – around NYC, the country, and most recently, the world.  I would like this to become the focus of my life, and I am asking you to give me a boost in getting there.

I have started an IndieGogo Fundraising campaign to raise $10,000 to produce 52 Man Pickup in Edinburgh.  Yes, this is a substantial amount of money.  HOWEVER, if everyone reading this post were to donate even $10, we could make it happen.

So please, visit my IndieGogo page to find out more about the project, and consider donating a few drinks’ worth of cash to help make it happen.  Just click on the link below today.  I mean, it is payday, y’all.  No time like the present*

52 Man Pickup Fundraising
On IndieGogo.com

*PayPal donations are posted instantly, and are therefore even more helpful covering the larger, preparatory expenses.  If you have a PayPal account, please consider using it when making a donation.

10 May 2011

New Yorker Ready For Tar Baby

News, Upcoming Gigs No Comments

New Yorker says Tar Baby’s (got it) going on. See here.

05 May 2011

Tar Baby Press Release

News, Upcoming Gigs No Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Desiree in “Tar Baby.” Photo by Tara Godvin.

May 5, 2011

CONTACT: Desiree Burch
tarbabyshow@gmail.com

PRESS REP
emily@emilyowenspr.com

terraNOVA Collective &  Desiree Burch present

Tar Baby

As part of the
8th Annual soloNOVA Arts Festival
May 12-28
9th Space @ Performance Space 122
[5/21 @9pm, 5/22 @4pm, 5/24 @9pm, 5/26 @7pm, 5/28 @2pm]
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

It took over 200 years to build America. It will take Desiree Burch under two hours to dismantle it. In Tar Baby, the alt-comedy diva explores the commodification of race and identity in America, poetically moving between enjoying its thrills and comforts and feeling sick when the ride is over.  Written with storyteller and playwright Daniel Ajl Kitrosser, Tar Baby is the collapsible space-and-time-machine ride at an Americana funpark, featuring: The glories of Manifest Destiny!  The 8-bit Majesty of the Oregon Trail!  The sideshow hilarity of Blaxploitation!  The Haunted House of Christianity! Good and Bad Hair-raising Tales!  The rollercoaster of White Liberal Guilt!  The Hall of Not Black Presidents!  Sheet forts! Night terrors! Childhood games! Punch and Pie!

Desiree Burch (Performer/Writer) has performed original works at Joe’s Pub, PS 122, Ars Nova, 59E59, Dixon Place, Galapagos Art Space, Yale University, and at Fringe Festivals in NY, New Orleans, Hollywood, and Edinburgh, in addition to her work with the NY Innovative Theater Award-winning New York Neo-Futurists.  She has enlightened and elated audiences at Caroline’s, Gotham Comedy Club, Highlights (UK), on VH1, MTV, NBC, Comedy Central and the stage of Saturday Night Live.  Her work has been called “hilarious” (NY Daily News), “vibrant” (Gothamist) and “surprisingly meaty” (Off-Off Online) and “pretty damn funny and pretty damn good” (Yale Herald). She is one of Huffington Post‘s “53 Favorite Female Comedians”, and New York Magazine‘s “Ten New Comedians that Funny People Find Funny”.

Dan Kitrosser (Co-Writer) is a writer, performer and storyteller.  His plays have been performed at P.S. 122, The Ohio Theatre, Bleecker Street Theatre, and Urban Stages, with work developed at Primary Stages, The Lark Play Development Center and Rabbit Hole Ensemble, and grants awarded by Brooklyn Arts Council in 2010 and 2011.  He is the resident storyteller at Central and Bryant Park, the Artistic Director of Writopia Lab’s Bestival and the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre 4the People.  He will pursue his MFA in Playwriting at The New School in the fall.

Isaac Byrne (Director) has directed the NY Innovative Theater Award-winning To Nineveh, Green, Something True, I Used To Write On Walls, Diane and The Jessica, and the staged reading of Miss Lily Gets Boned (The LARK)—all by Bekah Brunstetter.  Other directorial work includes Fresh Kills (59E59), The New Normal and the cowboy is dying (Coyote Rep), True West (Curious Frog Company) and Desiree Burch’s 52 Man Pickup. He is the former Artistic Director of Working Man’s Clothes, the current Artistic Director of Theatre 4the People and a teacher at New York Film Academy.

Tar Baby will run May 21 (9pm), 22 (4pm), 24 (9pm), 26 (7pm) and 28 (2pm) as part of the 8th Annual soloNOVA Arts Festival at 9th Space @ Performance Space 122 (150 1st Ave at 9th Street). Tickets may be purchased online at 9th Space.

05 May 2011

Desiree tweets. . .

News 1 Comment

. . . and is learning how to connect her website to her Twitter account. . .