Artists from the Feast of Fools

Fausto Fernós started performing at the age of 18 in Austin, Texas, where he studied with performance guru Linda Montano at the University of Texas. One of his first public works was an improvised soap opera called “SoftMen” where he and partner Chris Rincón created a weekly serial show that utilized thrift store clothing, weekly news events and a wild gay sensibility to create an intimate theater experience for a small audience above a clothing store in downtown Austin.

He went on to create artist variety shows at Esther’s Follies Diva Lounge titled “The Big Wig Revue” and founded the “Pe.A.Ch. / Performance Art Church” with artists Sheelah Murthy and Kerthy Fix.

Fausto was known best in Texas as the only drag queen on television, as host of the unusual talk-show “Faustina!” which won several awards, including the Austin Chronicle's “Best of Austin: Best Cable Access Show” in 1995. In addition to creating a variety of variety shows, Fernós also has written and directed three musicals dealing with such diverse subject matter as gay biology “Homosexual Personæ,” the first complete dinosaur fossil ever discovered “Mary Anning,” and the search for intelligent life beyond earth “Voices From The Sky.”

Fausto also performs regularly with his band “Glam Explosion,” which was featured at the queer rock concert “IDA-palooza” along with Bitch and Animal & Pistol Pete and Pop-Gun Paul in the mountains of Woodbury, Tennessee.Fausto explains: “We call our show’s band the Glam Explosion because that’s what my apartment looks like after a show: there is wig hair, glitter, feathers, and make-up scattered all over the place – its like David Bowie and Bootsy Collins walked in and exploded!"

In June of 2001, Fausto Fernós was awarded the 30 under 30 award, a distinction given every year to 30 GLBT visionary people under the age of 30 who make Chicago one of the most interesting cities in the world.In June of 2003, an exibition titled "Confessions of the Avant-Garde" featured 20 prominent artists who had performed in the Cleveland Performance Art Festival in the 1990's.

Out of literally thousands of images, artists, and media, Fausto Fernós was one of the 20 featured artists included in that exibition. Others artists included were: Blue Man Group, Karen Finley, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Goat Island, and Holly Huges.
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Taylor E. Ross is a musician and composer. He received his Bachelor of Music in
Composition and Theory from the University of Kansas.

He is the Musical Director for The Feast of Fools Cabaret and works with Fausto Fernós on independent musical projects. In addition, he plays piano at The Gentry and Ritz-Carlton.
In 2002 he composed incidental music for The Lesson, a short independent film for
film producer and director Mindy Hilt & The Chicago All-Stars. This film won the NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness Film Competition.

During the mid 1990s he scored the soundtracks and songs to three films: Lick Bush In 92", produced and directed by Elspeth Kydd and Gabriel Gomez. When They Come Alive, produced and directed by Robert Colucci and Stashu Kybartis. Lying Together, produced, written and directed by Arthur Stone.

Other scores include the title theme song to the children?s television program Read Me A Story, broadcast on WGBO 66. Incidental music beds for The Environmental Protection Agency’s Troubled Waters.

In the early 1990s Ross began writing, producing, recording and performing original songs for performance artist Joan Jett-Blakk (Terrence Smith). For Blakk’s 1992 Presidential Campaign, Ross and Joan created the Joan Jett-Blakk and The Can’t Keep-A-Secret Service Band.

They performed at many performance venues (Cabaret Metro, Club Lower Links, The Hot House, Blue Rider Theater, The Baton, Randolph Street Gallery). Ross also composed, produced and performed songs for Gurlene Hussey (Doug Stapleton), her sister Gurlette Hussey (Randy Eslinger), and Sandi Barnyard (Daniel Jackson).

Ross went onto compose two sound installation pieces, The Window of Vulnerability and The Marlboro Man for Mo-Ming Dance And Art Gallery in 1989 and 1990.

He and Bill collaborated on the recording of The Little Girl’s Song (the bomb) for High Performance - The Record, a performance art magazine. Shortly thereafter he and Harding moved to Chicago and started the music ensemble: Every Third Wish.

While in college he began working with local area bands doing live sound engineering and recording. He produced Get Smart’s! first album Action/Reaction for independent label Fever Records in 1982.
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Scott Free, the queer-rock singer/songwriter extraordinaire, has quickly become one of America's leading openly-gay male artists. His sometimes humorous, sometimes angry, always touching songs of queer life have gained him acclaim in both gay and straight media across the globe.

In 2001, he was named by the Windy City Times "Artist of the Year." His 1999 release 'The Living Dead' was nominated for 4 Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards. He joins an infamous lists of artists who's works have been banned by government agencies (the City Hall of Chicago in the winter of 2001).

He hosts the annual 'Queer IS Folk Festival' (an LGBT folk music festival) at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He is currently the host of 'Homolatte', a weekly queer performance series at the No Exit Café, also in Chicago. Like all true rock & rollers, Scott got his start in gospel music - he sang falsetto soprano for the Lavender Light Gospel Choir of New York.

His early forays into rap produced his first single 'Beat The Rap', who's video was on rotation on Black Entertainment Television. Scott's debut CD release, 'Getting Off' was hailed as a breakthrough in gay recordings, with rave reviews in publications such as the Washington Blade, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the San Francisco Bay Times.

Jeffrey Newman, of the New York Blade, called it "truly one of the most disturbing, yet powerful gay recordings of the AIDS era". Scott has been interviewed in the punk bible Maximumrocknroll, and has been featured on National Public Radio's 'All Things Considered' and Canada's MuchMusic video channel.Scott is also a photographer, and his work has been published in the irreverent Gab magazine, Thing - Robert Ford's ground-breaking black/gay zine, and Straight to Hell, Boyd McDonald's chronicle of real-life sexual adventures.

Scott hosts and plays a short set every Thursday evening at his HOMOLATTE series.
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SILKY JUMBO

Silky's scenic designs, installations and murals weave a world of fantasy and fear into memorable experiences for the clientele of nightclubs in Chicago.

Acting out his childhood neuroses, Jumbo wins the hearts of old and young alike on the small stages of saloons across the world.
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ROTTEN FRUITS
The Rotten Fruits are a punk band of queers that have been kicking around since 2001. The Rotten Fruits are all about having fun, pissing people off, and looking good doing it! Bite it you scum!
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HARVEY FINKLESTEIN
The Harvey Finklestein Institute of Whimsical, Fantastical, and Marvelous Puppet Masterage has been performing it's unique style of puppetry in Chicago since 2002 at such venues as the Noble Fool Theater, Live Bait Theater, and Theatre Building Chicago. Some of the Institute's shows that have received critical acclaim are Harvey Finklestein's Sock Puppet Showgirls and Harvey Finklestein's A Puppet Christmas Carol. In August of 2004 the Institute played to sold out houses at The New York International Fringe Festival. Harvey Finklestein and his puppet cohorts have been featured on WGN Morning News, WBBM Morning News, and CLTV.
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LAWRENCE E. PEREA
Lawrence E. Perea has more than 15 years of performance experience. His start was as a musician playing alto saxophone and progressing into voice and acting. His recent credits include: Chicago Gay Men's Chorus, Bailiwick's Pinafore!, Peter in Jesus Christ Superstar and San Diego's Jazz Quartet. Some of his favorite roles include Lun Tha in The King and I and Sampson in Romeo and Juliet (Musical Theater Southwest). His private vocal studies total more than five years. He has performed with choral groups in New Mexico, California and Chicago and has also performed with orchestral and jazz bands as well.
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For over 12 years, Anthony Seranilla work as a hairstylist has gathered him the popularity of many national celebrites. He is the proud owner of Aria Salon.

Anthony Has appeared in many Hell in a Hand Bag and Sweetback production favorites such as Scarrie the Musical and Touched by Jane Mansfield as well as his work as one of the Olsen Twins in "A Whole Lotta Love Boat."

BC Kalz's past performances include Great Beast Theater’s “Robert Rules of Audor” and Sweetback Productions’ “The Birds,” and oh yeah, and his star turn in the title role of “Touched by Jayne Mansfield.”
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AMANDA COHEN
Amanda Cohen is a member of WNEP Theater and this is her first time basking in the glow of Fausto, and she's getting a great tan. You may remember Amanda from such roles as Warden Ima DeZell in "SLAMMER! The Prison Girls Musical, " or as Fran Drescher in Roscoe's Game Show Night, or possibly as an understudy with GayCo (though she is only an honorary lesbian...hear that, boys?). In real life she's a professional face and body painter and graphic designer. Maybe she painted on you at Market Days. Some of her favorite shows include WNEP Theater's "Dirty Bible Stories" and "Armageddon Radio Hour," and the upcoming "degenerate Art." Thanks, Fools!
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RICHARD BLUESTEIN (RICHARD RAVENPANTIES)
Richard Bluestein earns his living writing database queries, but spends his free time creating with other queeries. Richard has performed lots of times as Madge Weinstein, a domineering Jewish lesbian.

A prolific filmmaker and videographer, Richard Bluestein was Director of Photography for Kristie Drew's feature film, “Other People's Mirrors” which will premiere at the Gene Siskel Center in September of this year. Richard is also editing his documentary, “The Great Kugel-Off” and is in the process of preparing his/her one (wo)man show as Madge Weinstein, "Bloated with a 'B'."

Long term goals include writing the script for his new play, "Our Bloating Ourselves," a serious postmodern, post-menstrual musical that ponders the questions, "What ever happened to that fabulous 70's feminism?" and "What the hell did you do with my speculum, Esther?"

In his spare time, Richard Bluestein enjoys wearing unflattering dresses and forcing people to smell his pungeant underarm odor whilst dancing around the maypole with hot-pannused patchoilli-donning pagans and celebrating the joys of liberating oneself from his/her own genitals in the name of sexual freedom. (Hey buddy, can you spare a gundt?")

earns his living writing database queries, but spends his free time making lots of nice art with other queeries. Richard has performed lots of times as Madge Weinstein, a domineering Jewish lesbian.

Long term goals include writing the script for his new play, "H. Oy Vey," which is a comedy about how Jews deal with disease and death. Richard hopes eventually to be able to earn a living acting retarded.
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