John Fleck’s resistance to being pigeon holed as an actor and/or performance artist began in 1985 when after years of struggling as a theatre actor a new world of creative opportunity opened up when he climbed on top of a punk bar in Silverlake CA and began to strip tease while singing Puccini’s Madam Butterfly in a countertenor soprano.
It was a heady uphill ride as his self-scripted work began to garner critical acclaim culminating in 1990 when he was labelled an ‘obscene performance artist’ by Senator Jesse Helms and a chorus of others who put pressure on the National Endowment for the Arts to rescind funding to him and 3 other artists thus forever branding them the NEA 4. Their case went to the Supreme Court which they won.
Refusing to be censored Fleck stepped into the spotlight creating larger pieces for prestigious performance spaces and museums while also establishing a career as an actor in theater and TV/film which financially supported his not-for-profit performance work.
Fleck’s IMDB Page
He currently has a starring role in the film DEAD MAIL hitting the Festival circuit including the 2024 South by Southwest Film Festival and Toronto Film Fest, among others.
Dead Mail Trailer
A sampling of theaters he’s worked as an actor include: Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Kirk Douglas Theater, LATC, South Coast Rep, Cape Playhouse (Dennis, Mass), Getty Villa, Odyssey, Skylight, UCLA Reprise.
A sampling of his award winning self-scripted work include: Blacktop Highway, a gothic horror screenplay’d on one man’s body: MAD WOMEN; Nothin’ Beats a Pussy; A Snowball’s Chance in Hell; Dirt; Blessed are all the Little Fishes; Psycho Opera and I got the He-Be-She-Be’s.
Performance venues presenting his self-scripted work includes; The New Museum, The Public Theater, The Guggenheim Museum, PS-122, Second Stage, La Mama, Dixon Place & Joe’s Pub (NYC); The Broad Stage, REDCAT, The Getty Museum, Cal Plaza, MOCA, Taper 2, Evidence Room, Bootleg & Skylight Theater (LA); the ICA (London); ICA (Boston); The Warhol Museum (Pittsburg).
