Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: The Story of a Proto-Trans, Pre-Punk, Nazi-Fighting Surrealist Couple

From the venue:

John Cameron Mitchell will give a public lecture "Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: The Story of a Proto-Trans, Pre-Punk, Nazi-Fighting Surrealist Couple" (Thursday March 27, 2025, Oxford Road Building Presentation Room, 5:00pm). In this lecture Mitchell discusses the subjects of his new play, the unsung early-20th century lesbian partners in life, art and resistance, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, who shook up the Parisian avant-garde between the wars with their multi-media work steeped in fluid identity, gender and sexuality. Later, as middle-aged retirees on the British Isle of Jersey, they took on the occupying Nazis with their art propaganda.

John Cameron Mitchell is a renowned American actor, writer, director, and singer. He is best known for his work on the rock musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which he co-wrote and starred in off-off-Broadway before adapting it for the screen. Mitchell’s other film credits include "Shortbus," "Rabbit Hole," and "How to Talk to Girls at Parties." He has recently starred in the television show "Joe v. Carol." He wrote and directed two fictional podcast series (which he calls “audio cinema”): the autobiographic musical "Anthem: Homunculus" (2019) called “a hallucinatory masterpiece” by Rolling Stone, and which starred himself, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, Patti Lupone, Denis O’Hare and Laurie Anderson; and "Cancellation Island" starring Holly Hunter which will was released in February 2025. John is a former fellow of the Sundance Institute Filmmaker Labs. He’s spoken at and conducted masterclasses and workshops at many institutes of higher learning including Yale, Brown, Northwestern, Wesleyan, Williams and Swarthmore. In 2007 he received the Dorothy Hirshon Award for Cinematic Achievement from New School University. He is presently working to create a nonprofit artists residency, Temple House, in his new home in New Orleans.