Opening Night Cabaret

Wondering how artists in residence facilitate networking? They throw a CABARET, of course!

Patrick Scully (Master of Ceremonies)

Patrick Scully began his performing career in dance, eventually stepped one foot into theater, reached out into writing with a pen in his right hand, and took up a movie camera in his left hand, before landing on his butt in performance art. He now thinks of himself most simply as a storyteller who moves well. He is most notorious locally for frequently appearing on stage naked. With Walker Art Center in 1994 he hosted the Ron Athey performance that led to another NEA scandal.  He also hosted safe sex parties for gay men in the basement space below where the Athey performance took place. In addition to his work with the cabaret, Patrick has been active as an out gay performer in this community since 1977. His solo works include: Making Lemonade, (about having to leave the US to be with his Brazilian lover), The Naked Truth, (about running for mayor of Minneapolis), A Faerie Home Companion, and Queer Thinking, an award-winning performance about being gay and HIV+ in America. He has created out queer work and performed collaboratively with many other artists, including Chris Aiken, Djola Branner, Poonie Dodson, Eric Gupton, David Lindahl, Ric Oquita, Erika Thorne, Keith Hennessy and Ishmael Houston Jones.  Since 1986, Patrick has been HIV+ and public about his HIV status. Never a part of the AIDS establishment, he has been free to speak his truth as an activist to the powers that be. Thematically, a significant part of his performing work has involved living with HIV.

Heidi Arneson

Heidi Arneson is a multidisciplinary artist who uses personal storytelling as a tool for social transformation. A featured performer nationally, she is renowned for her one-woman comedies that explore family, sexuality and taboo.  Ms. Arneson is currently completing her first novel, a mystery/thriller, The Flying Boy, and teaching her performance/writing workshop to inmates in a Minnesota prison.

Robert Dante

Bullwhip artist Robert Dante has presented at leather and SM workshops and seminars for more than two decades.  A two-time Guinness World Record holder, Dante’s TV appearances include HBO’s “Real Sex” and Playboy TV’s “After Hours.”  Dante wrote the chapter on bullwhips in the seminal book Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns, and he is founder of Houston PEP and former publisher of Boudoir Noir magazine.  In addition to being a lifestyle figure, Dante is a noted mainstream whip expert who has performed coast to coast in cabarets, Wild West events and circuses.  When he is not traveling, Dante lives with his lifestyle/performing partner, Tina, in the Twin Cities.

Matthew Gilman

Matthew Gilman has been making his presence known in the local comedy community for eleven years, and in the local kink community for three years.  He tends to elicit laughs in the dungeon and cries of pain while onstage.  Matthew is the most senior member of the Stevie Ray's Improv Company, where he teaches, directs, and performs weekly at the Stevie Ray's Comedy Cabaret in Bloomington.  He was a founding member of The Ministry of Cultural Warfare, and has written, performed, and directed with the sketch comedy outfits The New Neighbors and The Horn/Gilman Appropriations Act of 1917.  Matthew describes his humor as mostly thuddy, but occasionally stingey.

Sweet LillyBee

Sweet LillyBee, mother of three, performance artist, fire dancer, poet, visual artist, healer and priestess, flew into Minneapolis on the back of a vengeful goddess some 14 years ago and has yet to look back. LillyBee is a true renaissance woman who passionately lives Life as Art. She enjoys shaking her assets with Dr. Farrago’s Burlesque Theatre as well as working on creating the city’s first fire burlesquateer squad, The Siren’s Infernal Brigade. LillyBee has performed in multiple genres and venues all over the Twin Cities, including Barebones Halloween Extravaganza, HOTB May Day Festival, Feile Brid, Powderhorn Park, Black Dog Café, Patrick’s Cabaret, IceHouse Studios, Minneapolis Convention Center, Ground Zero, Kieran’s Irish Pub, Seward Café, Como Zoo, Revolutionary Women’s Cabaret, and most recently with Infiamatto: An Incendiary Opera with Bedlam Theatre.

Matthew Gilman

Matthew Gilman has been making his presence known in the local comedy community for eleven years, and in the local kink community for three years.  He tends to elicit laughs in the dungeon and cries of pain while onstage.  Matthew is the most senior member of Stevie Ray’s Improv Company, where he teaches, directs and performs weekly at Stevie Ray’s Comedy Cabaret in Bloomington.  He was a founding member of The Ministry of Cultural Warfare, and has written, performed and directed with the sketch comedy outfits The New Neighbors and The Horn/Gilman Appropriations Act of 1917.  Matthew describes his humor as mostly thuddy, but occasionally sting-y.

Felix Sweatburger

Felix Sweatburger quests the land seeking hapless vixens to vex using skin of beasts, fiber of plant, alchemical spirits from the bowels of the earth, brought to surface and spun into great weaves of tremendous strength emblazoning designs of power and beauty and creating new initiates of the kink-dom.