Since 2006, Bard’s Spiegeltent has served as the boozy, mirrored funhouse at the center of SummerScape’s more buttoned-up festival fare. This year’s season, running June 27 through August 16, once again brings a reliably eclectic mix of cabaret, comedy, music, and late-night dancing to the Hudson Valley’s most glamorous temporary structure. Curated by Jason Collins, producer at the Fisher Center, the 2025 lineup favors genre-blurring artists, queer nightlife fixtures, and musicians whose work doesn’t sit neatly on a Spotify playlist.
Among the marquee acts: Meshell Ndegeocello returns August 9 and 10 with No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, her Grammy-winning meditation on race, religion, and American identity. Adrienne Truscott, long a Spiegeltent mainstay, headlines on July 5 as “forgotten cabaret icon” Païge Trnr—part performance art, part stand-up, and reliably off-kilter. And John Cameron Mitchell closes the season August 15 and 16 with Queen Bitch, a tribute to David Bowie delivered with theatrical flair and the help of a Broadway house band.
Other season highlights include Ringdown, the new collaboration between folk-pop singer Danni Lee Parpan and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw (June 28); Martha Redbone’s My Indigenous Soul (July 12); and Juno Birch (August 1–2), the British drag alien who approaches Earth with campy bewilderment. Canadian Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie performs material from her acclaimed album Inuktitut on July 13, reinterpreting pop hits through the lens of her native language and culture.
The Bluegrass on Hudson series returns for its third season, guest curated by Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer, with Thursday night sets from the likes of Alison Brown, Chris Eldridge & Kristin Andreassen, and Brittany & Natalie Haas. Sunday offerings range from the queer country social Stud Country (July 20) to the family-friendly dance party KinderDisco (July 6).
For those more interested in cocktails than cabaret, Spiegeltent After Hours runs Friday and Saturday nights through the season, with DJ sets co-curated by Andy Monk of Queer Conspiracy. Admission is included with a same-day performance ticket, or $15 at the door ($12 in advance).
The venue itself remains part of the draw. Imported from Belgium, the Spiegeltent is a circular jewel box of stained glass, velvet, and beveled mirrors—a throwback to 19th-century traveling dance halls and a fitting backdrop for performances that veer from the refined to the delightfully unhinged.
