The Real Deep Dive
Faire des Niaiseries (2020-2026)
‘Going too Far’ has been a key framework for my artistic practice and an almost spiritual mission in my life. I was born during a snow storm; it's like I was given permission to wreak havoc. Acting goofy was my specialty. “Arrêtes de faire des niaiseries!” the grown-ups would say. Meaning “Stop playing the fool!” I heard it all the time. At best, as a plea, at worst, as a final warning before a hand would fly. I’d double down. I made being annoying into an Art. To the point where I knew if I annoyed someone long enough, I could push them through the rage, and they’d eventually break on through and laugh. That’s when I knew I had them.
YOU ARE HERE: 2020–2026
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The Traitors Campaign, 2025
A series of eight short-form performances created as a campaign to be cast on The Traitors. Ben LaRose recreated and spoofed eight of host Alan Cumming’s elaborate costumes, using social media as both performance platform and casting campaign. Conceived, costumed and performed by Ben LaRose.
“When your body is material for performance, making a drastic change to your appearance can have major consequences for the work. The first two iterations of NOT AMERICAN included a scene where I brushed my long hair forty times—one stroke for every year of my life. Before the last run, I decided to shave my head. Suddenly, a scene I had written for my long-haired body didn’t work anymore. I had to go back into the work and figure out what the scene could become. The cut ponytail pictured here now lives in the archive of the piece, alongside its other materials, as a record of the time I spent working on it.”
— Ben LaRose, retrospective notes on NOT AMERICAN, 2026
NOT AMERICAN, 2024 — Complete Performance
Full-length live recording of NOT AMERICAN at The Den Theatre, Chicago, May 31–June 15, 2024. Writer, Director, Performer, Producer: Ben LaRose. Assistant Director, Stage Manager: Sarah Skaggs. Lead Hair and Makeup: Jasper Drummond. Hair and Makeup: Alex Benjamin. Composer: Theo Katsaounis. Board Operator: Kat Sparger. Photo Documentation: Joshi Radin Flores. Video Documentation: Formidable Entities. Program Photography: Jim Prinz. Costume Design and Fabrication: Ben LaRose. Additional Alterations: Jasper Drummond. Props, Decor Design and Fabrication: Ben LaRose. Lighting and Technical Consultation: Christine Shallenberg. Narration, “The Reader”: Antoine Larose. Wig Fabrication: Chamilla Fox. Wig Cut, “Ben LaRose 30s”: Dan Becker. Studio Assistants: Casey Knepley, Fae LaFae, KHÔI. Vocal Coach: Elaine Lemieux.
Salon Dalon: I Became Céline Dion, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Opening sequence from NOT AMERICAN, with Ben LaRose performing as Salon Dalon—his imperfect Céline Dion impersonation—in full drag through a medley of Céline Dion songs.
The End, NOT AMERICAN, 2024
Closing sequence from NOT AMERICAN, performed live at The Den Theatre, Chicago. The final moments bring Benjamin back to himself, shedding the fantasies and personae accumulated throughout the performance and embracing his “inner moron.”
Ben LaRose: 20s, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Ben LaRose: 30s, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Ben LaRose: 60s, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Live Performance Photography: Joshi Radin Flores, The Den Theatre, Chicago, 2024.
Full Performance, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Complete live recording of NOT AMERICAN, from beginning to end, at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, June 2023.
Video Documentation: Formidable Entities.
Written, Directed and Performed by: Ben LaRose. Producer: Ben LaRose. LookOut Producers: Patrick Zakem, Lauren Steinberg. LookOut Production Supervisor: Matthew Chapman. Production Coordinator and Stage Manager: Sarah Skaggs. Hair and Makeup: Jasper Drummond. Dresser: KHÔI. Photo Documentation: Joshi Radin Flores. Video Documentation: Formidable Entities. Program Photography: Jim Prinz. Costume Design and Fabrication: Ben LaRose. Additional Alterations: Jasper Drummond. Props, Decor Design and Fabrication: Ben LaRose. Lighting and Technical Consultation: Christine Shallenberg. Narration, “The Reader”: Antoine Larose. Wig Fabrication: Chamilla Fox. Wig Cut, “Ben LaRose 30s”: Dan Becker. Studio Assistants: Casey Knepley, Fae LaFae, KHÔI. Vocal Coach: Elaine Lemieux.
Video Excerpts, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Excerpts from the premiere run of NOT AMERICAN at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, June 2023. Video Documentation: Formidable Entities.
Behind the Scenes, NOT AMERICAN, 2023
Stills from footage captured during the premiere run of NOT AMERICAN at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. Video Documentation: Formidable Entities.
Live Performance Photography: Joshi Radin Flores, Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, 2023.
Promotional Trailers, NOT AMERICAN, 2024
Selection of trailers produced to promote the second run of NOT AMERICAN at The Den Theatre, Chicago, May–June 2024.
Transformation - Becoming Salon Dalon, 2021
Transformation into drag for NOT AMERICAN. Camera: Sherman White.
“My goal is to experiment with these characters and workshop my lived experience in each of these bodies; costumes, padding, wigs and makeup included. There are areas of aesthetic polish to the project, but it also has rough edges. Unsightly body hair, an unstable walk in heels, a masculine voice attempting to sing high notes. These rough edges are really interesting to me because they challenge me to tap into something unknown and almost foreign. Drag, cross-gender embodiment, bodily exposure, camp, exaggeration, and the pleasure of becoming someone else provide the language through which I investigate identity.”
— Ben LaRose, NOT AMERICAN, Rogers Art Loft residency application, 2022
Annabel with One “L,” NOT AMERICAN
Promotional photographs for NOT AMERICAN.
Annabel with one "L", NOT AMERICAN, costume
Ben LaRose — Hollywood Alter Ego, NOT AMERICAN, costume
The Canada Post Mailman, NOT AMERICAN, costume
Julia Roberts, NOT AMERICAN, costume
Mary Higgins Clark - The Queen of Suspense, NOT AMERICAN, costume
“I came to performance from visual arts. This translated into an approach that often began with materials rather than scripting. Wearables, costumes, props, and other physical artifacts preceded text, becoming catalysts for generating characters, images, and narrative possibilities. Fabrication was an integral part of how I developed NOT AMERICAN: through patterning, sewing, embellishment, material tests, fittings, and physical improv, costumes were fabricated, tested, revised, and refined. Characters—and the performance itself—emerged through that process.”
— Ben LaRose, retrospective notes on the development of NOT AMERICAN, 2026
“In December 2019, I saw Céline Dion perform live for the first time. I bought a front-row ticket so that no one would stand between me and her. I wanted a direct channel of communication with my Québécois diva, to feel her energy directly. I teared up at the very first note she sang, and I cried the entire show. So much so that by the end, my beard was all wet. I cried because of the intensity of the emotional charge I felt. And that, I decided, would be the bar I would set for myself from this point on.
I started 2020 by delving deep into research. I was hungry to come up with a project where I could reconnect with a sensibility I felt intensely earlier in my life, that visceral if not aggressive need to take risks, to figuratively ‘feel the edge of the cliff with my foot.’”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s First Contract Review dossier, 2021–22
My Fabulous Blankets, 2022
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic FineArt paper. 11 × 14 in. (image area 9.5 × 12.5 in.). Edition of 15.
“It started as a joke, really. […] I thought it was comical how the snapshot of Nicole was taken out of context and snowballed so quickly. I decided to take it even further and made it into a blanket. The main interest for me is in the potential for what I call ‘performing the editorial.’ I use my own body, gestures, styling, my voice and accents to perform a queering of pop culture. I use my own six-foot-three, hairy Québécois male body as a means to recreate the gestures and ultimately transform the images. I hybridized myself: one limb, one posture, gesture, or one soundbite at a time.”
— Ben LaRose, interviewed by Vasia Rigou, Newcity Design, 2022