BORN WITH THE MOON IN CANCER was my first attempt in creating an evening length solo work in the form of a staged concert, containing a series of stylistically disparate songs that were glued together by choreography. As a quasi-autobiographical work, it traced the ambition and debauchery of a driven young man who goes to the big city, becomes a cabaret singer, gets involved with and strung out on drugs, and returns to his childhood home, where he finds refuge and confronts his demons. His trusted companion, love interest, inner child, and ultimately tragic relationship, was represented by a stuffed pet chicken.

Story, choreography, direction, costume and visual design by John Kelly; music by Georges Bizet, Bernard Hermann, Gustav Mahler, Joni Mitchell, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giovanni Pergolesi, Camille Saint-Saens, Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky and Giuseppe Verdi; lighting design by David Ferri. Premiere: Performance Space 122, NY, May 2, 1986.