gay | rogue ballerina

My guest for the Pride month episode is a dear friend, former boss, and one of my mentors.

Matthew Harvat designs events and environments, from the intimate to the grand and from the enduring to the spontaneous. As principal and lead designer of his own Chicago-based event company (Circuit Mom Productions), Harvat has transformed both public and domestic spaces for more then twenty-seven years. His event production includes such major venues as the House of Blues Chicago, the Aragon Ballroom, the Uptown Theater Grand Lobby, SideTrack Video Bar, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and countless other performance spaces locally and nationally where he has worked as artistic director, actor, performance artist, and DJ. His DJing includes headline appearances in Vancouver, Prague, Miami, Chicago, Orlando, Toronto, and Hollywood.

Concurrent with this evolution, over the last twenty-seven years, Harvat developed the alter ego, drag superstar Circuit Mom and became an iconic presence in dance music festivals around the world. Gay and straight audiences alike embrace his unique combination of DJing, production and performances that fuse glamour, wit, and audacity. His creativity is irrepressible and his keen eye for fostering talent has also become a hallmark of his productions. Up-and-coming artists, DJ’s, photographers, dancers, actors, musicians, costume designers, and more have not only added their incomparable talents to countless event productions, but have become family and continue to work as a collective force to bring Harvat’s audiences the very best.