THE DEGENERATE LAB
Lead by Adam M. Kassim, Malena Dayen, Anthony Vaughn Merchant
The Doxsee Theater | September 18 – October 5, 2025
For the first time since the pandemic, the Target Margin Theater Lab returns with THE DEGENERATE LAB, a series of productions answering the question, “What is Degenerate Art Now?” Associate A.D. Adam M. Kassim creates FAGGOT/TERRORIST inspired by the work of David Wojnarowicz; director Malena Dayen interprets Valerie Solanas’ underground classic UP YOUR ASS as a new opera; and TMT Associate Artist Anthony Vaughn Merchant leads NEXT UP, a piece inspired by and featuring new voices lead by the counterculture of punk.
One-time music and artistic events enrich the program even more, including Pull, a personalized tarot card musical performance by Emily Duncan, Britt Hewett, and Rebecca Hart, Cabaret Verboten hosted by Viva Lamore, and a TMT Community Café for Degenerates featuring a reading of The Bus Stop by Gao Xingjian.
FAGGOT/TERRORIST
Lead Artist: Adam M. Kassim
Faggot/Terrorist is a deeply personal fantasia colliding identity, time, sexuality, death, and a desperate plea for grace. Inspired by the work of queer artist David Wojnarowicz, this new piece seeks to cut through the veneer of our daily lives and grapple with the impossible and the divine.
Carolyn Mraz – collaborator/designer
Kat Hansell – collaborator/stage manager
Calvin Osorio – collaborator/performer
M. Can Yasar – collaborator/performer
Ali Arian Molaei – collaborator/performer
UP YOUR ASS
Lead Artist: Malena Dayen
Up Your Ass is Valerie Solanas’ long-suppressed 1960s classic—an unapologetically bold and sharply satirical work from one of radical feminism’s most provocative voices. With biting humor and explosive dialogue, Solanas tears into gender roles, capitalism, and sexual politics. This operatic production draws on the subversive energy of 1920s Berlin cabaret and the vibrant tradition of Yiddish revue, blending music, satire, and political theatre in a boundary-pushing exploration of form. Reimagining musical theatre through a radical feminist lens, it brings together performers from diverse backgrounds to celebrate the spirit of degenerate art—unruly, confrontational, and unapologetically subversive.
Featuring Karen Vuong, Sophie Zmorrod, Mary Neufeld, Avi Glickstein, Martin Fisher
David Rosenmeyer – Composer/Music Direction/Piano
Saskia Lane – Bass
Holly Channel – Drums
Devin Cameron – Design
Sarah Lillian – Stage Manager
NEXT UP
Lead Artist: Anthony Vaughn Merchant
Next Up is a piece inspired by and featuring new voices lead by the counterculture of punk. The Nazis described any art that they didn’t agree with as degenerate. By their own definition punk is all around us. Punk is inside all of us, even if you never owned a leather vest with patches and studs, even if you never pierced your nose in the school bathroom with a safety pin. We will explore the question through our own varying degrees of experience, “ what does punk mean to me?” See you in the pit.
(As is) Lianne Elsouki – Deep Punk
(Oh!) Nicole Maldonado – Known Punk
Megan Zammit ( ) – Punk Lead
Chrisaury Guzman (fosho) – New Punk
(Oops) Anthony Vaughn Merchant – Guide Punk
(Really Really Dope) Liana Morales – Last Punk
Yang Yu – Illuminating Punk
Ahmed Dadabai – Paint Punk
ONE-TIME EVENTS
TMT Community Café for Degenerates
Monday, September 29
at 5 pm
Community Café for Degenerates is an evening for all those along the margins to gather in the Doxsee over light bites and a collective reading of The Bus Stop by Gao Xingjian.
Pull
Tuesday, September 30
Open Admission
4 pm – 8 pm
A concert written especially for you—an answer to your most pressing question.
Rebecca Hart reads your Tarot as flutist Emily Duncan and singer and sound artist Britt Hewitt orchestrate your reading in real time. Or you can just listen.
Cabaret Verboten
Thursday, October 2
at 9 pm
hosted by Viva Lamore
Featuring
Queerly Femmetastic, Julie Atlas Muz, James Tigger! Ferguson, Sage Sovereign, Veronica Viper
Cabaret Verboten is an immersive art party that time travels from the TingelTangel clubs of Weimar Berlin to New York City today, with burlesque and varieté that celebrates queer beauty, Black history, and female autonomy. Expect a subversive evening of art as rebellion, blurring the line between audience and spectacle. The coat room will be open for you to dress (or undress) in your most degenerate or decadent attire.
PRESS
Faggot/Terrorist – Theatre Beyond Broadway
Up Your Ass – Opera Wire
Photos by Bronwen Sharp