Michael Harren

48; vegan 6 years; hometown Brooklyn, NY

 

"I'm not new anymore to solo performing, but this is my second show. The first show was  like, 'Oh, I'm making a show now.' So, I finished it and I was like, 'What's next?' I went with some friends, the Vegan Mos, to Woodstock Sanctuary for their Thanksliving event. It was my first visit to a sanctuary and they also announced that day that they were moving to a new start spot and there was gonna be space for people to stay. I had the idea on the way back that maybe I can do a residency at an animal sanctuary. I ended up doing it in Tamerlaine Farm in Montague, New Jersey. For a year, I went up there once a month and I would spend four or five days working on the farm getting used to the animals and just volunteering. I wrote stories about that and important animal stories from my life, like a dog that was my friend when I was an adolescent and dealing with coming out.

The first show was called, 'Tentative Armor,' and it was little vignettes mostly about intimacy. There were some risqué stories and then a big piece about my mom when she was passing away. I took care of my mom during her last month when she was dying of lung cancer. So I wrote a piece called, 'Five Tasks of Grief' that sort of inspired me to start performing. Losing my mom, who was someone who was always supportive of my music even though I was like, 'I don't know if I want to do this,' that made me feel like, 'Shit, maybe I should do this now.'"