Innovative performance artist Tim Miller returns home to P.S. 122 (the celebrated downtown performance space he co-founded) for his latest solo piece 1001 Beds. The title refers to the number of hotel bedrooms he most likely will have slept in if he continues to be an itinerant performance artist for another 20 years (approximately 1/3 of his lifetime). In the small upstairs studio space with only a futon-style bed as the set, the ever genial, very boyish and of course ever political Miller begins his bedroom travelogue at the age of 18.

Since this is a performance piece by Tim Miller (a member of the notorious 'Gang of Four' of 1990 who took a lawsuit over First Amendment rights to the Supreme Court and eventually won) one knows it will deal with sex and so it begins with Miller's loss of virginity. Anxious to explore his budding homosexuality, Miller has his first sexual tryst in a sleazy hotel room across from the Hollywood Bowl (after a classic middle class adolescence in Santa Monica). The next stop is Miller's move to New York City and becoming a bellboy in the Hotel Navarro (now defunct) where he developed his Marxist principles while serving and bedding the elite. After launching P.S. 122 and developing the seeds of queer performance art, Miller takes his act on the road. A hilarious highlight of this period is his description of the Vernon Manor in Cincinnati, Ohio: a neo-Edwardian, pseudo-Disney hotel that is the "go-to" stop for everyone from the Beatles to Ronald Reagan when in the area. Miller points out that during this period even "John Lennon tried to stop a war from a bed". In the section dearest to his heart, Miller meets and beds (in the same day) his future longtime companion, Alistair after a performance workshop in London in 1994. The narrative concludes at the Hollywood Bowl where Miller and others are arrested after protesting America's involvement in Iraq. While in the holding cell with one mattress, Miller concludes with the description of a boisterous sex party among those arrested.

Tim Miller's quality of a cock-eyed optimist (no pun intended) is his most endearing feature even when it extends itself to America's questionable political future. His adventures in queer theory and performance have deservedly brought him a devoted following both here and abroad. His savoir-faire as a performer is equally impressive especially since the only material he is using is his own life experience. 1001 Beds is both an evocative look back and a hopeful look forward.

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