Paved Paradise

Embodying Joni Mitchell

ABOUT

Singing the music of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. A theatrical construction. The score: Joni’s songs. The book: Joni’s words. The trajectory: younger to older incarnation through three vocal octaves. First came the music. Then came the character. Not impersonation, but embodiment. Live art as triathlon.

“Yet I did find John Kelly’s Paved Paradise profound, or, at the very least, profoundly moving, so that’s the slope we’re skiing.” – ARTFORUM

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Concept, direction, interpolated texts by John Kelly
music, lyrics, and transcribed texts by Joni Mitchell
backdrops by Craig Coleman

Version I: with Brian Butterick (Georgia O’Keeffe) and Jesse Hultberg (Neil Young), Wigstock Festival, Tompkins Square Park, NY, Labor Day, 1984.

Version II: with Jonathan Bassil (Neil Young) and Kenneth Mellman (Georgia O’Keeffe); produced by Tom Ross and Liz Dunn for John Kelly & Company; Josie’s Juice Joint, San Francisco, CA, October 1993.

Version III: with Zecca Esquibel (Georgia O’Keeffe) and Mark McCarron/Blake Newman (Vincent van Gogh); produced and directed by Kevin Malony of TWEED TheaterWorks, Westbeth Theatre Center and John Kelly Performance; Westbeth Theatre Center, NY, October 1996, and Abrons Arts Center, NY, 2009.

“There’s drag, and then there’s transformation through spiritual osmosis, and that’s what John Kelly accomplishes with this tribute to the queen of the singer-songwriters. Every blue note, every toss of the golden mane captures Ms. (Joni) Mitchell’s singular aura and communicates why a man like Mr. Kelly would fetishize her persona rather than playing just another variation on Joan Crawford. Magnificent.” – The New York Times

“I felt like I was Huck Finn attending his own funeral or Jimmy Stewart in that movie where the angel walks him back through his life. I was braced for a lampooning, and I didn’t expect to be so touched. My boyfriend and I were clutching each other and sobbing.” – Joni Mitchell

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