Performance Schedule
Tuesday, June 1 @ 6:30pm Thursday, June 3 @ 6:30pm Friday, June 4 @ 6:30pm Saturday, June 5 @ 6:30pm Sunday, June 6 @ 6:30pm Tuesday, June 8 @ 6:30pm Thursday, June 10 @ 6:30pm Friday, June 11 @ 6:30pm Saturday, June 12 @ 6:30pm Sunday, June 13 @ 6:30pm |
Whitman in Love, written and performed by John Kevin Jones (A Christmas Carol at the Merchant’s House; Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe), comes to the garden of the Merchant’s House Museum for a limited run - June 1 -13, 2027.
American journalist, essayist, and pioneering poet Walt Whitman took nightly refuge at Pfaff's beer cellar just blocks from the Merchant's House on Broadway at Bleecker Street, a bohemian gathering place where he found community, inspiration, and the human intimacy that shaped his work. In the Museum’s jewel-box garden audiences will encounter the deeply personal love poetry of Walt Whitman in an idyllic theatrical setting that brings them face-to-face with one of the most powerful and revealing strands of his work. Whitman in Love draws from the poet’s “Live Oak, with Moss” — a sequence of poems composed in the 1850s and widely recognized as among the earliest sustained expressions of same-sex love in American literature. Later camouflaged in the Calamus section of Leaves of Grass, the poems trace an emotional arc of desire, tenderness, heartbreak, and resilience. Whitman in Love places these verses in conversation with contemporary voices and personal relationships that shaped Whitman’s inner life and artistic imagination. The result is a theatrical portrait of the poet not as a monument, but as a man: yearning, beloved, vulnerable, and transformed by love. Tickets are priced $65 for general seating and $75 for front row. Seating is strictly limited to 40 per performance. Complimentary refreshments, including hard seltzers, soft drinks, and light snacks will be available before each performance. |
JOHN KEVIN JONES (Actor, Creator) Kevin is a member of Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and the Dramatists Guild of America. In New York Kevin has been seen in Nothing But Trash, Theater for the New City; The Winter’s Tale and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Hipgnosis Theatre. Regional credits include The Pavilion (American Stage), Othello (Arkansas Rep), The Rivals, All My Sons (Kentucky Rep), Angels in America, Gross Indecency (Playhouse on the Square).
WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892) transformed American poetry by celebrating the body, desire, nature, and the boundless possibilities of human connection. In Live Oak with Moss, a sequence of poems written in the 1850s, Whitman confronted love between men with an openness remarkable for his time. He wrote of desire, intimacy, separation, and grief—not as abstractions, but as deeply personal experience. Though Whitman later rearranged and dispersed these poems within Leaves of Grass, the original sequence remained a powerful testament to a love he struggled to name publicly. Today, Live Oak with Moss stands among the earliest great works of openly queer American poetry.
MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM The Merchant’s House Museum is New York City’s only family home preserved intact—inside and out—from the 19th century. Built in 1832, the House offers visitors an intimate and authentic glimpse of life in 19th century New York City and the struggle against slavery. It is the only intact site of the Underground Railroad open to the public in Manhattan. It has been under threat from proposed development next door for 14 years and is fighting for its survival!
The Merchant's House is a National Historic Landmark, a New York State landmark, and in New York City, one of only 124 buildings with both exterior and interior landmark status. www.merchantshouse.org
Follow www.merchantshouse.org on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @MerchantsHouse
ACTION ALERT! Please take 30 seconds to submit a letter to Mayor Mamdani to help SAVE the Merchant's House!
And SHARE on social media / tag @merchantshouse
SUMMONERS ENSEMBLE THEATRE Founded by a group of actors who studied together at Circle in the Square Theatre School’s Professional Acting Training program, Summoners Ensemble joined the ranks of New York nonprofit theatre companies in 1993. Created as a collaborative to allow the members to share in all of the functions needed in running a theatre company, Summoners remains a collective effort as we jointly produce theatrical events with other nonprofits or as we find ourselves acting and directing, writing and producing.
WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892) transformed American poetry by celebrating the body, desire, nature, and the boundless possibilities of human connection. In Live Oak with Moss, a sequence of poems written in the 1850s, Whitman confronted love between men with an openness remarkable for his time. He wrote of desire, intimacy, separation, and grief—not as abstractions, but as deeply personal experience. Though Whitman later rearranged and dispersed these poems within Leaves of Grass, the original sequence remained a powerful testament to a love he struggled to name publicly. Today, Live Oak with Moss stands among the earliest great works of openly queer American poetry.
MERCHANT’S HOUSE MUSEUM The Merchant’s House Museum is New York City’s only family home preserved intact—inside and out—from the 19th century. Built in 1832, the House offers visitors an intimate and authentic glimpse of life in 19th century New York City and the struggle against slavery. It is the only intact site of the Underground Railroad open to the public in Manhattan. It has been under threat from proposed development next door for 14 years and is fighting for its survival!
The Merchant's House is a National Historic Landmark, a New York State landmark, and in New York City, one of only 124 buildings with both exterior and interior landmark status. www.merchantshouse.org
Follow www.merchantshouse.org on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @MerchantsHouse
ACTION ALERT! Please take 30 seconds to submit a letter to Mayor Mamdani to help SAVE the Merchant's House!
And SHARE on social media / tag @merchantshouse
SUMMONERS ENSEMBLE THEATRE Founded by a group of actors who studied together at Circle in the Square Theatre School’s Professional Acting Training program, Summoners Ensemble joined the ranks of New York nonprofit theatre companies in 1993. Created as a collaborative to allow the members to share in all of the functions needed in running a theatre company, Summoners remains a collective effort as we jointly produce theatrical events with other nonprofits or as we find ourselves acting and directing, writing and producing.
