John Jarboe
John Jarboe (she/her) is a director, producer, writer, performer, and art activist, and the founding artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret. After receiving a BA and a BFA in English and Theater from the University of Michigan, Jarboe moved to Philadelphia, where in the past 14 years she has created and performed work for organizations including the Wilma Theater, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Horticultural Society, FringeArts, and Opera Philadelphia.
She and her company, the Bearded Ladies, gained notoriety for their annual Bastille Day show at Eastern State Penitentiary, which grew under her writing and directing from a street festival to an hour-long performance attended by over 10,000 people by 2018.
Jarboe has received a 2013 Independence Fellowship, was named Best Drag Performer in Philadelphia (2018) by Philadelphia Magazine, and is a 2022 Transformation Grant awardee (the Leeway Foundation). Outside of Philadelphia, she has toured original work to Miami, Seattle (Seattle Symphony), France, Poland, New Zealand (Performance Arcade), and Australia (Malthouse Theater). She has also written, performed, and directed original work for La MaMa ETC, Joe’s Pub, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series, and the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series.
She has written for and directed original cabarets for famed opera star Anthony Roth Costanzo and is the drag doula of Stephanie Blythe. Jarboe’s original performance piece Rose: You Are Who You Eat, commissioned by Works & Process, is in the midst of a rolling world premiere at FringeArts in fall 2023, La MaMa in January 2024, and Woolly Mammoth in June 2024. She is also a resident artist at the Fabric Workshop and Museum and debuted her first installation of films and objects, The Rose Garden, in May of 2024.
