Tickets are priced $65 and are now on sale at www.merchantshouse.org and www.summonersensemble.org.
Seating is strictly limited to 40 per performance. Wine and light beverages will be offered in the garden. In case of rain the performance will move indoors to the grand Greek-Revival parlor. The production’s performance schedule is:
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This Pride Month, 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 24 -28, 2026.
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. Join us in the Museum’s jewel-box garden where audiences will encounter the deeply personal love poetry of Walt Whitman in an intimate theatrical setting that brings them face-to-face with one of the most powerful and revealing strands of his work. The performance draws from Whitman’s “Live Oak, with Moss” — a sequence of poems widely recognized as among the earliest sustained expressions of same-sex love in American literature. Composed in the 1850s and 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 the voices and relationships that shaped Whitman’s inner life and artistic imagination. The result is a theatrical portrait of the poet not as monument, but as a man: yearning, beloved, vulnerable, and transformed by love. “Whitman wrote of love in ways that transcended the boundaries of his time,” says Jones. “During Pride Month, we honor him as a queer ancestor—an artist who insisted that love between men was worthy of poetry, dignity, and song.” |
JOHN KEVIN JONES (Actor). Kevin is the executive director of Summoners Ensemble and a member of Actors Equity Association, SAG, and the Dramatists Guild of America. New York: A Christmas Carol at the Merchant’s House (SET), Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe (Merchant’s House Museum), Nothing But Trash (TFTNC), Jeffrey (starring Bryan Batt), The Winter’s Tale and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Hipgnosis Theatre). Regional: The Pavilion (American Stage), Othello (Arkansas Rep), The Rivals, All My Sons (Kentucky Rep), Angels in America, Gross Indecency (Playhouse on the Square). BA in Theatre Performance from the University of South Florida and MFA in Theatre Directing from the University of Memphis.
MERCHANT'S HOUSE MUSEUM. 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
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
MERCHANT'S HOUSE MUSEUM. 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
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
