Award-Winning Off-Broadway Show

Local theatre aficionados are in for a very special treat at the beginning of the new year.

Asheville Community Theatre will host Bill Bowers’ award-winning, off-Broadway performance It Goes Without Saying on Saturday, January 9.

One of the most acclaimed multi-disciplinary artists in America today, Bowers employs an eloquent mixture of music, monologues and mime in his ongoing investigation of the silence surrounding the enigmatic matters of gender in our culture today. Often compared to Chaplin and Keaton, he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.

In this 75-minute joyride, Bowers shares hilarious, heart-breaking, and unbelievably true stories from both his career and his lifelong exploration of the role silence plays in all of our lives.

It Goes Without Saying takes the audience on a scenic tour of Bowers’ life thus far; from growing up gay in the wilds of Montana, to his outrageous jobs as a performer, to the whirlwind of working on Broadway, and studying with Marcel Marceau. Compared to the work of Claudia Shear, Lisa Kron and David Sedaris, It Goes Without Saying is an autobiographical tour-de-force.

Bowers, a native of Montana, is being brought to Asheville courtesy of LEAD Productions, a new local staging company whose mission is to “break boundaries” in theatre and film and to “integrate connection back into the audience experience.”

“I have seen this production six times and I would see it 100 more,” says LEAD Productions Artistic Director Richard Handy. “It’s why I wanted so deeply to bring Bill and this experience to Asheville. I wanted to share his story with the city I love. His production is unforgettable.”

“When it was playing in Tampa I was actually going to rent a car and drive down just to see it, but I couldn’t get around class,”

Handy says. “You don’t just see Bill in this show. You see his soul. It also felt poetically appropriate to inaugurate LEAD productions with It Goes Without Saying and have it at ACT for the community.”

For more information, visit Bill-Bowers.com

If You Go: Bill Bowers, It Goes Without Saying, Saturday, January 9, 2016 at Asheville Community Theatre, 35 East Walnut Street, Downtown Asheville. (828) 254-1320 or visit www.ashevilletheatre.org.