Spiegeltent
Adrienne Truscott and Le Gateau Chocolat
Grey Arias
July 24
Spiegeltent
July 24
Le Gateau Chocolat is a man. Adrienne Truscott is a woman. Le Gateau Chocolat is a gay, black, English-Nigerian man and drag artiste. Adrienne Truscott is a cis white feminist American female performance artist. Le Gateau Chocolat is a multi-award-winning, plus-sized, bearded, drag diva feminist. Adrienne Truscott is a multi-award-winning comedian and provocateur who enjoys chocolate cake, up to a point. They are dear friends, and here, as in everyday life, they perform a multiplicity of identities: perceived, lived, and projected. As their comical banter turns personal, political debates erupt, and grey areas (and arias) are exposed. Between musical numbers that span Madame Butterfly and Annie, they spring rhetorical traps designed to catch any who overstep the blurred lines of the politically correct and interrogate the boundaries of allyship.
Devisors and Co-Writers Adrienne Truscott and Le Gateau Chocolat
Co-Direction and Dramaturgy Rose Jarboe
Sound Design Kim “Busty Beatz” Bowers
Original Lighting Design Connor Lovejoy
Original Video Design and Additional Sound Design Carmine Covelli
Development Collaborators Eugyeene Teh and Amelia Lever-Davidson
Adrienne Truscott’s work crosses methodologies from dance, theater, comedy, and performance art, as drag, evening-length pieces, dances, and solos. She’s a Doris Duke and FCA grantee, and her recent collaboration Masterclass (with Brokentalkers) won a Fringe First Award for outstanding new writing and had its U.S. premiere at NYU Skirball and the Fisher Center at Bard. Grey Arias with Le Gateau Chocolat premieres in the U.S. at The Flea Theater in March 2026, followed by an engagement at London’s Southbank Centre. She’s one half of NYC denizens and centuries-old Wau Wau Sisters, and her critically acclaimed Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else is considered a game-changer at the performed intersection of rape culture, gender, and comedy. The intentional breadth of venues where her work’s been presented illustrates her commitment to making art that can speak to many different audiences—Sydney Opera House, Sophiensale, Fusebox Festival, The Moth, MIT, Weirdo Night, CBGB’s, PS122, The Kitchen, MoMA (Chicago), Parkside Lounge, The Slipper Room, 40 Watt, and The Whitney. She’s performed with Kiki & Herb, Le Tigre, Murray Hill, John Cameron Mitchell, Lucha Va Voom, Sarah Michelson, David Neumann, and Deborah Hay, amongst many others. She is attracted to the possibility of failure as a mandate for rigor and revels in the destabilization of genre and form.
Voted by Time Out London as one of its Top 10 Cabaret Stars, Le Gateau Chocolat is a one-man, larger-than-life musical phenomenon, wrapped in dazzling sequinned lycra. The six-and-a-half-foot-tall, six-inch-heeled, wig-clad wonder swings wildly from one end of the musical spectrum to another, from disco and opera to musicals and pop. Le Gateau Chocolat’s work spans drag, cabaret, opera, musical theatre, children’s theatre, and live art. His bewitching baritone has been heard in previous works Le Gateau Chocolat (2011), I Chocolat (2012), In Drag (2013 Royal Festival Hall commission) and BLACK (2014 Homotopia commission), which toured with the music ensemble Psappha in 2017.
His children’s show Duckie premiered at the Southbank Centre in 2016, and was included in the Guardian’s ‘6 of the Best Shows for Children’ of the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show, which introduces young people to the ideas of otherness, tolerance, and self-acceptance, has been presented at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Wales Millennium Centre, Roundhouse, Contact Theatre, and across venues in the South East of England. His recent production ICONS has toured to Sydney Festival, Wales Millennium Centre, Soho Theatre, Underbelly Southbank, and more. ICONS has also been presented with accompaniment from the Little Coco Orchestra, a Le Gateau Chocolat initiative to support diverse musicians through the creation of an ensemble formed entirely of women of colour. This up-scaled production premiered at SPILL Festival in 2018, with a subsequent presentation at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire as part of SHOUT Festival. As a technically-gifted and celebrated baritone, Le Gateau Chocolat has been invited to perform at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, and as part of the Olivier-winning La Clique/La Soiree. He has worked with composers Julian Philips, Jonathan Dove, Jocelyn Pook, and Orlando Gough. He has performed as Feste in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe (2017) and in the Gate Theatre and English National Opera co-production Effigies of Wickedness (Songs Banned by the Nazis) (2018). He also appeared as part of Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: The First Act at London’s Barbican Theatre (2019), and alongside Shaq Taylor, Adrian Lester, Beverley Knight, and Clive Rowe in the guest role of Daddy Brubeck for the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Sweet Charity (2019). Le Gateau Chocolat most recently appeared in Wagner’s Tannhauser, starring Stephen Gould, which opened the 108th Bayreuth Festival in 2019 and attracted headlines around the world for the reaction to his participation as a drag artist of colour.
Grey Arias was originally commissioned by Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne. Early support for Grey Arias was provided by Fisher Center LAB, Soho Theatre (London), and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Grab a bite and a drink while you’re at the Fisher Center! We offer theater concessions at Sosnoff Theater, LUMA Theater, and Olin Hall. Across the way is the al fresco Spiegeltent Garden—or grab a nosh while seeing a Spiegeltent performance. There is ample space for outdoor picnics across the Bard College campus. Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Spiegeltent
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