D'Lo Headlines Dixon Place HOT! Festival With 'To T, Or Not to T'

Dixon Place proudly presents the 26th Annual HOT! Festival, the NYC annual celebration of LGBTQ culture. Headlining the festival is D'Lo's solo work "To T, Or Not to T," which begins performances on Friday, July 7 at 7:30 p.m. During this pioneering celebration of queer performance and cultures, "To T, Or Not to T" will play six performances only -- July 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, and 22 at 7:30 PM -- at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street.

The HOT! Festival, which is the world's longest-running festival of its kind, is a performance destination for emerging LGBTQ talent in theater, music, dance, puppetry and visual arts. A benchmark for other queer festivals around the globe, HOT! Festival continues its celebration this year July 5 to August 3 with over 100 participating artists.

Transgender actor and comedian D'Lo returns to Dixon Place to headline the 2017 HOT! Festival with his newest solo performance, "To T, Or Not to T," a hilariously intimate reflection on taking t(estosterone) and his experiences transitioning. Taking on over 15 characters and fusing spoken word, stand-up comedy, theater, film and music production, and drawing on his journey as a transgender Sri Lankan-American, D'Lo unpacks issues of access, denial, and guilt that come with passing as a cisgender, straight, male person of color. With "To T, Or Not to T," D'Lo confronts his quest to embody a beautiful masculinity while simultaneously upholding his feminist politics.
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Hailed as "The best LBGTQ Theater Festival in New York" by The Village Voice, the HOT! Festival returns to Dixon Place for its 26th annual celebration of queer culture. The oldest annual festival of its kind in the world, HOT! never stales as its fresh lineup of artists each year continue to deliver innovative works in theater, music, literature, visual arts, and homoeroticism for the whole family!

Dixon Place is proud to carry on the tradition of the HOT! Festival, serving as both a model for numerous other queer festivals and an artistic refuge for passionate voices in the LGBTQ community. Over the years, HOT! has included such notable performers as Marga Gomez, Reno, Justin Vivian Bond, John Fleck, Kate Bornstein, Lisa Kron, Lea Delaria, Penny Arcade, Craig Lucas, Samuel R. Delaney, Eileen Myles, and Peggy Shaw.
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D'Lo is most recognized for his TV/film credits, including co-starring in HBO's "Looking" as Taj, as well as roles in Amazon's Golden Globe-winning "Transparent," Netflix's "Sense8," and Sundance Fellow Adelina Anthony's feature length film "Bruising for Besos." He is a co-producer for DisOriented Comedy, a mostly female Asian-American touring stand-up comedy showcase.

"Performing Girl," the documentary by Crescent Diamond based on D'Lo's life and work, won the Best Short Documentary Award at Outfest 2013. He also appears in the upcoming Issa Rae/Project Greenlight-produced "Minimum Wage" and his own web series, "Private Dick." D'Lo has toured internationally with his full-length stand-up storytelling show "D'FunQT," and his work has been published in various anthologies and academic journals, including Hip Hop and South Asia America and "Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics."

His writing workshop series, "Coming Out, Coming Home," provides emotional and spiritual support for individuals working through the complexity of their intersecting identities by writing through their personal narratives and sharing their truths through a public reading. For more information, visit www.dlocokid.com

The Dixon Place Lounge is open before and after the show. Proceeds from the bar directly support Dixon Place's artists and mission. Dixon Place is located at 161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), in Manhattan's Lower East Side (By subway: B/D to Grand, F to 2nd Ave, J/Z to Bowery, 6 to Spring St, M to Essex St).

This Dixon Place commission is made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the arts, NY State Council on the Arts, with the support of Gov Andrew Cuomo and the NY State Legislature and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Tickets to "To T, Or Not to T" are $22 in advance, $25 at the door, and $15 for students and seniors. For tickets and further information please visit http://dixonplace.org/performances/to-t-or-not-to-t/ or call 866-811-4111. For information on the HOT! Festival, log on to http://dixonplace.org/category/hot-nyc-celebration-of-queer-culture/