“Mixes pop music, a burial ceremony, and great dance performances … a reflection on the impossible truth that artists are seeking.” —PARIS LA
This January, the Walker Art Center will present interdisciplinary artist Edgar Arceneaux’s surreal dark comedy Boney Manilli as part of Out There 2025. Featuring original music and puppetry, the work follows an eccentric family on individual yet intertwined journeys as their lives spin from pathetic to bizarre and their search for truth collides. For over three decades, the Walker’s annual Out There performance series has surveyed leading theater makers from around the world, inviting them to the Walker each winter.
Featuring original music and puppetry, Arceneaux’s work centers around Sunny, a self-loathing artist who struggles to finish his script about the infamous pop duo Milli Vanilli while coping with his mother’s dementia. Meanwhile, his freeloading brother Bro Bro begins a misguided adaptation of the controversial Disney film Song of the South into a play about Black liberation.
Each performance opens with a 1990s-themed puppet karaoke party.
Edgar Arceneaux: Boney Manilli
Thursday, January 23–Saturday, January 25, 7:30 pm
McGuire Theater
Tickets start at $15, fees included
RELATED EVENT
Edgar Arceneaux presents Boney Manilli: Puppet Karaoke
Thursday, January 23, 6 pm
Cargill Lounge
Embrace your ’90s self with puppet karaoke hosted by Monkeybear Productions in the Cargill Lounge. In celebration of the presentation of Edgar Arceneaux’s new play Boney Manilli, we invite you to take your turn for a classic throwback Thursday filled with disco, ’80s, and ’90s pop hits.
Gallery admission is free on Thursday nights, 5–9 pm. Admission tickets are available online or at the Main Lobby desk.
ABOUT EDGAR ARCENEAUX
Born in 1972, Los Angeles-based artist Edgar Arceneaux received a BFA from the Art Center College of Design and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Arceneaux constructs drawings, installations, video, and film works as complex arrangements of association that examine adjacencies and points of contact between implausible relations. Constantly working in new modes, Arceneaux directed his first play at the Performa Biannual in New York City in November 2015, and was awarded the Malcolm McLaren, Best of Show Award. Arceneaux received the prestigious Mike Kelley Foundation Award in 2019 and the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship in 2020.
He has participated in the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva Island, Florida; Art Pace in San Antonio, Texas; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine; Banff Center for Arts and Cretivity in Banff, Canada; and at the Fachhochschule Aachen in Germany. Solo exhibitions have been presented at the Vera List Center at the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Switzerland. His work is in major museum collections at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum, Museum Ludwig, the Hammer Museum, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is an Associate Professor of Art for Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California. Recognized as a national leader in the arts, Arceneaux also serves on the Board of Directors at Creative Capital.
TICKETS
Ordering tickets is easy: visit walkerart.org/tickets or call 612.375.7600. Prices include all applicable fees. Box Office is open Wednesday–Sunday and one hour before performances.
ACCESSIBILITY
For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.
For questions on accessibility, content and sensory notes, or to request additional accommodations, call 612.253.3556 or email access@walkerart.org.
STUDENTS COME EARLY
Students own the rush line! Get in line an hour before showtime for $15 rush tickets. One ticket per person with student ID. (Some restrictions apply.)
GET TOGETHER
Experience these performances in a group of 10 or more people and save 15% on tickets. Purchase group tickets online, over the phone, or in person. The discount is automatically applied at checkout on orders of 10 or more tickets to the same performance.
MEMBERS DO MORE
Become a member and enjoy a 20% discount on performance tickets, receive unlimited free gallery admission, and more. Call 612.375.7655 or visit walkerart.org/membership.
ABOUT THE WALKER ART CENTER
The Walker Art Center is a renowned multidisciplinary arts institution that presents, collects, and supports the creation of groundbreaking work across the visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. Guided by the belief that art has the power to bring joy and solace and the ability to unite people through dialogue and shared experiences, the Walker engages communities through a dynamic array of exhibitions, performances, events, and initiatives. Its multiacre campus includes 65,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, the state-of-the-art McGuire Theater and Walker Cinema, and ample green space that connects with the adjoining Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Garden, a partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, is one of the first urban sculpture parks of its kind in the United States and home to the beloved Twin Cities landmark Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Recognized for its ambitious program and growing collection of more than 15,500 works, the Walker embraces emerging art forms and amplifies the work of artists from the Twin Cities and from across the country and the globe. Its broad spectrum of offerings makes it a lively and welcoming hub for artistic expression, creative innovation, and community connection.
Acknowledgments
The Walker Art Center’s Performing Arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Producers Council
Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers Council: Christina Evans and Weston Hoard; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; Judith Brin Ingber and Jerome Ingber; Neal Jahren; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury; Sarah Lutman and Rob Rudolph; Emily Maltz; Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; Therese Sexe and David Hage; and Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.
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