Name: Bethany Thomas: TRANSFORMER
Start: 2024-05-23T20:30:00-05:00
Location: 3111 N Western Ave Chicago IL 60618

8:30pm. $35
Bethany Thomas, Chicago siren, embodies the many identities of the iconic Lou Reed for three night only. Backed by a six-piece band and featuring movement by Darling Shear, Thomas invites us into her own take pn the seminal rock album, Transformer. Step into an intimate, red-lit fantasy of the 1970s' underground music scene and become a part of the story.

Bethany Thomas is an award-winning actor, singer and writer known for her gripping, genre-fluid live performances on stage and at the mic. A decorated Chicago theater darling, she’s garnered recent acclaim for portraying rock guitar icon Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the play Marie and Rosetta; also Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas in the one-woman show Songs For Nobodies (Northlight Theater).
Other credits include: Once, Into the Woods, A Moon for the Misbegotten (Writers Theater); A Christmas Carol (Goodman Theater); Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Ragtime, The Color Purple (Milwaukee Rep); The Tempest (Chicago Shakespeare); Marry Me A Little (Porchlight Music Theater); Porgy and Bess, (Court Theater); Hair (Paramount Theater); and a season as Madame Z in Teatro ZinZanni Chicago. She also likes to pop up in projects with The Neo Futurists, Second City, Back Room Shakespeare, The Paper Machete, Grelley Duvall, Jon Langford, Robbie Fulks, and the queer af dance and performance troupe The Fly Honeys.

A 2019 recipient of the 3Arts Award in Music, Bethany’s played infamous Chicago institutions such as The Metro, The Hideout, The Green Mill, The Lyric, Steppenwolf Theater, Pritzker Pavilion and Ravinia, and continues to devise and star in popular tribute shows to timeless performers like David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and Lou Reed. BT has released several collections of original music- the 2017 EP First; then 2020’s albums BT/She/Her; and Material Flats, made with bestie Tawny Newsome (available on Apple Music, Bandcamp, Spotify, and everywhere else).

@bethanyt80