The Bardavon Presents A JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS

“The Pope of Trash” will provide a Joyeux Noël like no other…at the Bardavon SATURDAY December 1 at 8pm

The Bardavon is proud to present A John Waters Christmas on Saturday, December 1 at 8pm at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY. The sponsor is M&T Bank. A portion of the proceeds benefit the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center.

Like a wayward Santa for the Christmas-obsessed, John Waters will cruise into town with his sleigh full of sticks and stones, spreading yuletide cheer and lunacy in his critically acclaimed one-man show. Torn between capitalism and anarchy, the legendary filmmaker (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, etc), raconteur, and best-selling author feels “Christmas crazy” this year – “needy, greedy, horny for presents and filled with an unnatural desire to please.”
Waters’ rapid-fire monologue explores and explodes the traditional holiday rituals and traditions. He shares his religious fanaticism for Santa Claus, and an unhealthy love of real life holiday horror stories. Delving into his passion for lunatic exploitation, Christmas movies, and the unhealthy urge to remake all his own films into seasonal children’s classics, “The Pope of Trash” will provide a Joyeux Noël like no other.

John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films. Waters’ 1970s and early ’80s trash films feature his regular troupe of actors known as the Dreamlanders—among them Divine, Mink Stole, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Edith Massey. Starting with Desperate Living (1977), Waters began casting real-life convicted criminals (Liz Renay, Patricia Hearst) and infamous people (Traci Lords, a former porn star).

Waters skirted mainstream film-making with Hairspray (1988), which introduced Ricki Lake and earned a modest gross of $8 million domestically. In 2002, Hairspray was adapted to a long-running Broadway musical, which itself was adapted to a hit musical film that earned more than $200 million worldwide. After the crossover success of the original film version of Hairspray, Waters’ films began featuring familiar actors and celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Edward Furlong, Melanie Griffith, Chris Isaak, Johnny Knoxville, Martha Plimpton, Christina Ricci, Lili Taylor, Kathleen Turner, John Travolta, and Tracey Ullman.

Although he maintains apartments in New York City and San Francisco, and a summer home in Provincetown, Waters still mainly resides in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, where all his films are set. He is recognizable by his trademark pencil-thin moustache, a look he has retained since the early 1970s.

Tickets are $100 VIP Meet & Greet, $60 Gold Circle, $40 All Seats, $30 Rear Balcony, and are available through:

Bardavon Box Office                   UPAC Box Office

35 Market Street                          601 Broadway
Poughkeepsie                              Kingston
845.473.2072                              845.339.6088

or through Ticketmaster at 800.745.3000 or www.ticketmaster.com.