Today, we’d like to introduce you to Matthew R. Kerns, MFA. They and their team share their story with us below:
Matthew is a concept-to-execution strategist for the multidisciplinary arts sector. An excellent communicator and consummate relationship builder with a proven development and art education background. A generous community builder and an award-winning visionary. At his core, he is committed to JEDI’s work and was awarded the Diverse Business Leaders Award from the St. Louis Business Journal. Matthew has also been honored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing for his work in arts education and American Theatre Magazine for portraying Melania Trump in The Mueller Report: Read, Sing, Resist. Matthew and his husband, Sean’s house, was recently featured in the St Louis Living section of the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
Matthew is the President and Artistic Director of St. Lou Fringe. Throughout his art career, he has also served as an Executive Producer, Director, Artistic Director, Writer, Performer, and Theatrical Scholar. Matthew’s career has taken him across the nation to Chicago, California, New York, and home to St. Louis.
Highlights of Matthew’s artistic portfolio include his original performances [Xmas Carol, Chicken, Life in the Fastlane], Immersive events [Gay Fantasia, Home], and standard plays and musicals [An Act of God, Noises Off, For Colored Girls, Frost/ Nixon] Students that have trained with Matthew have gone on to work in television, film, major motion pictures, and on Broadway from Saturday Night Live to Gotham, Six: The Musical to Jake, the State Farm Guy, and beyond.
Matthew holds an Associate in Communications and Theatre from St. Louis Community College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Eastern New Mexico University, and a Master of Fine Arts from Naropa University. Matthew is an expert in the performance practices of Stanislavsky, Meisner, Grotowski, Somatic Movement, Improvisation, Roy Hart Vocal Technique, Moment Work, and Viewpoints. He has presented at the NAIS Conference, National Writing Conference for Youth, Missouri Conference on the Younger Years, the Theatre Communications Group National Conference, and TEDx.
He married the love of his life, Mr. Sean Gottlieb, in a simple service under St. Louis Arch in April 2020. They reside in the Lafayette Square neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, with their dogs, Lewis, Harvey Milk, and Tuxedo the Cat.
You wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far, would you say the journey has been smooth?
It is always a challenging road when trying to achieve a goal. My goal was to be a theatre practitioner who shared the stories of underserved communities, with my creations focusing on the stories of being a gay man in modern America. I started this journey in the Chicago storefront theatre movement in the 1990s. I worked with About Face Theatre, the first theatre company of its kind that has a mission that focuses exclusively on the LGBTQ community. The Boxer Rebellion Ensemble, a fiery bunch of young artists, focused on contemporary theatre works and the life-changing Telling’ Tales Theatre Company, led by visionary Tekki Lomnicki.
I loved the traditional theatre, but I was trying to do something other than what I was trying to do in my creative career. Tekki, AD at Telling’ Tales, knew I had a personal story to tell, and she pressed me to do it, to create and perform a semi-autobiographical solo performance about my coming out. I had to overcome insecurities about my talents, internalized homophobia, and be willing to come out of the shadows in full force to be a “poster child” for the gay movement. It was hard, and I almost quit several times. I focused on artists who laid the foundation before me, my lineage: Quentin Crisp, Judy Chicago, Ntozake Shangé; all fearless art makers unfettered by the abuse of pop culture, politicians, and the general public. Finally, Christian Growth with Father C was born, and it was a hit.
Empowered by the success of my first piece, I went on to create Chicken, a solo performance about life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness in the misdiagnosis of HIV life. In The Fast Lane, the story of a gay man and his truck-driving dad, and The Gay Fantasia, an immersive late-night experience spanning the last days of the Harvey Milk era to the first days of the HIV AIDS Crisis.
Chicago was a dream, but I had plateaued in my work there and knew I needed to move on. Graduate school, jumping around the country for jobs at various arts organizations, and finally coming home to mourn my father’s sudden death. Death proved to be the biggest obstacle in my life. Losing my dad, my best friend, was paralyzing. I stopped doing work. I stopped living; I just froze. I started returning to life when St. Lou Fringe hired me as their next Executive Director. I hadn’t been an arts admin and didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I had a passion for the work and would figure the rest out as I went along.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am best known as the president and artistic director of St Lou Fringe. I specialize in nurturing new works for the stage across the disciplines. I am proud of how nimble St Lou Fringe is under my leadership, specifically, our quick pivot in the pandemic to create one of the first digital festivals in the nation and the world. Further, we have succeeded in elevating close to five hundred new works from an idea in an artist’s head to a realized show on one of our stages. Still, I am proud of the community we built here in St Louis around new works and experimental theatre. What sets me apart from the rest is that I went away to develop myself and my voice, and I chose to return home to share my expertise and creative expression with my fellow St Louisians.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was the kid who played a lot by himself. I was aggressively bullied, told I was going to hell by my catholic upbringing, and flourished only when I founded the drama club in high school. My only interest was in the stage. It’s all I wanted to do. I loved language, creativity, and the escapism of films, television, plays, and musicals. I was always saving my high school job paychecks to buy a musical cassette tape or a ticket to see a TV show at the MUNY or the FOX.
Pricing:
- 15 STLFringe FEST Non Headline Show
- 25 STLFringe FEST Headline Show
- 35 STLFrige FEST Headline Show
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stlfringe.org
- Instagram: @stlfringe
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stlfringe
- Twitter: @StLouFringe
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@StLouFringe
Image Credits
Busted Melania Trump Photo: Suzy Gorman, Gay Fantasia Photo: John Roberts Fashion, Fund Photo: Sean Gottlieb My Country, a new work at UMSL with lead creation by Matthew R Kerns: Photo by Matthew R. Kerns, MFA
