Paul Outlaw

Paul Outlaw, born in New York City in Bellevue Hospital and raised on Avenue D in the Jacob Riis Projects, is a Los Angeles-based experimental theater artist and vocalist whose award-winning solo projects have been presented across the United States and in Europe. His work's recurring themes are race, sexual identity, violence and American history. Paul is the recipient of one of the 2012 COLA (City of Los Angeles) Individual Artist Fellowships, which honor ten mid-career artists "who dedicate themselves to an ongoing body of excellent work, represent a relevant progression through their pieces or series, exemplify a generation of core ideas in their field, garner respect from their peers, and serve as role models for other artists." Trained as an actor at the Phillips Exeter Academy and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Paul has portrayed an eclectic spectrum of roles that includes James Baldwin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Nat Turner, Sigmund Freud, Jesse Owens, William Randolph Hearst, Donald "Cinque Mtume" DeFreeze, Hades Lord of the Underworld, Tom Sawyer, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the Scarecrow of Oz, Shakespeare's Mercutio and Beckett's Vladimir. He played the title role in Pepe Danquart's Black Rider (1993), winner of the 1994 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Paul was the lyricist and lead vocalist for the Berliner bands Snow Blind Twilight Ferries and Fortified Static; backing vocalist for Mad Romeo; and guest vocalist and lyricist for the dance project General Motor and legendary post-punk constellation Die Haut. Paul has expanded his artistic practice through the creation of performance-based works that are not limited by the boundaries of a single art form in a diverse range of locations and contexts. In 2010 and 2011, he has performed at Westwood's Armand Hammer Museum (Annie Okay, Asher Hartman's Machine Project A.I.R. musical performance spectacle); at the Kellogg Gallery in Pomona, CA, and the Silent Movie Theater (Under Glass, a video/performance installation created in collaboration with Carole Kim and Carl Stone); and at LACE/Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (What Did I Do to Be So Black and..., a mixed media performance collaboration with installation artist Curt LeMieux, for which Paul received an Artists' Resource for Completion Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation). In addition, Paul has enjoyed a more than ten-year collaboration with choreographer Rosanna Gamson. Paul is the author and performer of the solo trilogy consisting of Here Be Dragons, Berserker and The Late, Late Show. He received a 2008 Durfee Foundation Artists' Resource for Completion Grant for Berserker, which was named Best Male Dramatic Solo at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. A frequent performer at Highways Performance Space and REDCAT in Los Angeles, Paul has also appeared at national and international festivals such as Madness and the Arts World Festival (Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Canada), Sternzeichen II (Theater am Turm, Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Blaktino Queer Performance (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL), Out on the Edge (Theater Offensive, Boston, MA) and Voices in the Wilderness (Theater! Theater!, Portland, OR).