Arts Agenda - Jumping the tracks

Kt Kilborn calls herself a comedian, an activist, a critic, an actor, a boy and a woman.

Confused? Don’t be. That’s exactly the performer’s point: Not everything fits neatly into a box.

Kilborn brings her unique spoken-word approach to Actor’s Express for a two-weekend run of This Train, a survey of the artist’s journey from homecoming queen to gender renegade. The three-act performance includes Kilborn’s popular “Underground TRANSit,” previously staged at the Seen+Heard Festival and PushPush Theater. Kilborn labels the piece a mixture of feminist theory, drag and rock ‘n’ roll.

“I come in wearing a skirt and a cute T-shirt and talk about being seen as a girl but not being one,” says Kilborn. “Then there’s a rock ‘n’ roll song and I take off my clothes. That part’s pretty audience interactive.”

This Train embarks with two shorter stops on the road to gender identity. “Ode to an Indian Woman: Cross Cultural Conflicts on a Date at Alix Olsen” pits the pressures of dyke culture against misconceptions about race. The lighter “Falling As Sport,” which Kilborn performed in 2002’s First Glance Festival, details how to break-up with your girlfriend on a ski slope. Both stories, the artist says, are true.

This Train makes a fitting warm-up act for Actor’s Express’ upcoming production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, another rock-fueled foray into sexual transformation. In that play, the title character jumps between gender roles, eventually arriving at an altogether original destination.

Kilborn’s art mirrors that theme, but tells the story from a female-to-male perspective. “Underground TRANSit” takes place on a subway, a metaphor the artist mines for possibility.

“It’s all about travel,” she says. “There are so many opportunities to get off and move in a different direction. I don’t see the subway as totally binary, which is something that I’m dealing with in all my work. These are all just different stories from the journey.”

This Train runs Jan. 9-18. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 5 p.m. $15. Actor’s Express, 887 W. Marietta St. 404-607-7469. www.actorsexpress.com.??