Queerguru has always been a big fan of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret since way back when (see https://queerguru.com/?s=bearded+ladies) so we are really excited to be making tracks to Philadelphia to see Priority Hoarding: A Retrospectacle, to celebrate their 16th Anniversary.

When we spoke to Rose Jarboe (she/her), the founding artistic director of Bearded Ladies Cabaret, she told us “We’ve accumulated a lot of baggage over 16 years of producing queer art, and this project is about looking forward through looking back. It’s about honoring the past while making space for whatever comes next—and doing it with joy, absurdity, and a lot of puns.”  (The latter we always expect!) 

Priority Hoarding is a large-scale, interactive experience that blends performance, installation art, and participatory ritual. Framed as a journey on a fictional “receding airline,” the project offers a playful yet poignant retrospective of the company’s 16-year history—what they’ve made, what they’ve carried, and what they’re ready to release. Audiences will revisit and reconsider set pieces, costumes, wigs, and other materials from past productions like the Warhol-inspired Andy: A Popera, the true story of gender cannibalism Rose: You Are Who You Eat, the skating spectacle Beards on Ice, annual Bastille Day performances at Eastern State Penitentiary, the Crawford-obsessed Mommie Queerest, and the recent exploration of childhood and identity, Girl Dolls: The American Musical.

Part exhibition, part performance, and part emotional reckoning, the experience unfolds as a “flight of fancy” in which small groups of audience members move through a series of imaginative environments. From a retro “hairport lounge” space filled with curated suitcases containing memories of past performances to a whimsical terminal complete with karaoke, ritual checkpoints, and a final departure into a cardboard kitchen modeled on the real kitchen where the Bearded Ladies began in 2010, each stage invites participants to engage with memory, legacy, and transformation.