Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce
Christmas as Calamity! Taylor Mac’s beloved annual holiday extravaganza, Holiday Sauce blends music, film, burlesque and random acts of fabulousness in the most subversive and cathartic event of the season. Ibsen Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac (who uses “judy” as a gender pronoun) invites long-time collaborators and surprise special guests to celebrate the holidays in all of their dysfunction. There is more to the holidays than rampant gift giving— in Taylor’s world, creativity and imagination are their own spirituality. Taylor Mac reminds us of the collective power of our chosen families, a message that rings true in spite of capitalism’s attempt to hijack the holidays.
Since its premiere in 2017, gathering chosen family to watch Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce has become annual holiday tradition. When the COVID pandemic got in the way of touring plans, the show was reimagined as “a virtual vaudeville" and was broadcast to Taylor Mac’s international community.
We’re back in 2025, LIVE with new gifts under the tree and all your favorites from yesteryear!
Holiday Sauce was commissioned by Pomegranate Arts/Nature’s Darlings and The International Ibsen Festival, The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and The National Theatre of Oslo developed with additional support from the Ancram Opera House, Park Avenue Armory and the Barbican Centre.
For Holiday Sauce:
Conceived and Performed by Taylor Mac
Music Director / Arranger - Matt Ray
Set and Costume Design - Machine Dazzle
Director Holiday Sauce Live - Niegel Smith
Creative Producers - Pomegranate Arts
Producers - Linda Brumbach & Alisa E. Regas
“a present from the island of misfit toys…a Christmas miracle”
–LA Times–San Francisco Chronicle
Holiday Sauce contains adult language and sexual content and is intended for mature audiences.
Who will be crowned Queen?
Holiday Sauce honors the legendary Mother Flawless Sabrina who produced her first drag pageant in 1959 and many more for decades to follow. Until her death in 2017 at the age of 78, Flawless served as mother and mentor to hundreds of artists, musicians, and younger drag queens welcoming them in her Upper East Side salon. We honor all of the elders and wise persons who embody her spirit in their life’s work.