m. beasley, also known as “Meat Bar”
LA-based artist, writer, and performer
M. Beasley, who performs under the pseudonym Meat Bar, is a queer comedian and interdisciplinary artist born and based in Los Angeles, California, whose practice spans across multi-media performance, writing, costume design, and visual art.
Meat’s primary education was completed at a country school in the rural Sacramento Valley, where they specialized in animal husbandry, with an emphasis in wool processing and domestic sheep. They went on to complete their undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University, where they had to sign a contract swearing that they were NOT gay.
During their Latin American studies capstone, Meat became monomaniacally gaga for the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, who lectured at BYU towards the end of his life because he heard Mark Twain hated Mormons and he had to know why. Influenced by these experiences, Meat’s work frequently explores time-space compression, historical birth orders, oral histories, patterns of American cultism (particularly through the Mormon manifestation), and the upward spiral of myth to reality to myth.
Their show Sugar Mud premiered at Hollywood Fringe in 2025 and won Most Outstanding Solo Show at the GSL Fringe in 2026. In 2024, they were a VIP-in-Resident at Elysian Theater as ⅓ of the theater ensemble AutoBody, performing their original play Re-Membering Our Lil Guy. They did the original costumes for Orin Calcagne & Jenson Titus’ breakout play, A Finger Pointing at the Moon (2024). They regularly play the archetype of Pluto in their experimental theater ensemble Planets, Planets, Planets (LA Astro Fest, Elysian SpaghettiFest), among other ongoing personal and collaborative projects.
A surreal PIECE of solo clown Theater
written & performed by Meat Bar
Winner: GSL FRinge OUTSTANDING SOLO SHOW
sugar mud
get on the dirt clod, bitches
⚠︎ We’re gettin’ sucked up into a tornada ⚠︎
This inimitable experience is inspired by the artist’s Granny (born 1908) getting picked up by a tornado (Oklahoma, 1920) and living through the dust bowl (1930s), the writer Jorge Luis Borges (born 1899) and his short story Circular Ruins (written in 1940), an eternal marriage becoming an eternal divorce (∞), their Mormon temple name [redacted], rock bottoms, and rocks.
The show takes place on a floating clod of dirt that hovers in the eye of the tornado. You—the audience—get sucked up into this dust-bowl domain, ruled by a crone so ancient, so washed up, they are difficult to distinguish from the rock formations that surround them. On view are nylon costumes and symbolic textiles (made by the artist), and clothes-line pillars modeled after the “Lot’s Wife” salt rock landmark (fabricated by Aubrielle Hvolboll and friends at Freak Nature Puppets).
☆☆☆ Reviews☆☆☆
“so damn smart on the money” — UTAH REVIEW
“genuinely, unapologetically odd”
— Rhetorical REVIEW
“easily one of the best shows I’ve seen in my damn life”
— AUDIENCE Review
“The ending had me sitting with my mouth wide open”
— AUDIENCE Review
“Hits high brow and low brow with such smoothness”
— audience review
“I loved worrying about the dog”
— AUDIENCE Review
Through a vortex of surrealism and fringe society wisdom, Sugar Mud explores themes of natural order, oral histories, historical birth orders, family lineage, and generational rock bottoms. The work examines the device of storytelling–how it is used to foist systemic control, and the alchemy that occurs when stories are rewritten–restructuring the imposed order. And because we’re traveling through time in a tornado, much thematic mass gets picked up along the way.
The show asks important questions like “what’s dangerous and to who?,” “whose is this and why is it on me?,” and “what’s the dog’s name?” But most importantly, on its face and on its floor, the show is absurdly stupid.
“This show is a new rock in my rock collection”
— AUDIENCE REVIEW
“Rarely do you arrive in a theater and get transported both gently and instantaneously”
— AUDIENCE Review
SELECT 𓎚 WORKS
Performance
‘Sugar Mud’ solo clown (2025, ongoing)
‘Pluto’ in Planets, Planets, Planets (ongoing)
‘Kolob Has a Price Tag 2000’ solo clown (2026, WIP)
‘Why Can’t I Stop Biting You?’ solo clown (in development)
‘Mormon Girls Camp’ Original Play (2027, in development)
‘Whatever You Need’ Music Video (2024)
‘Re-membering Our Lil Guy’ Original Play (2023)
‘Freak Show Rodeo: A Queer County Fair’ Festival (2022)
Art
‘Birth Orders’ soft-sculpture (2020, on-going)
‘Re-Membering Our Lil Guy’ fabrication (2023)
‘Blind Contours of the Moon’ photography (2021, ongoing)
‘Touching Tips’ textile (2020)
meditating on Friendship while thinking of agnes Martin’s Islands
This work was on view AUG 26-28th, Orilla Verde Campground, Rio Grande Gorge State Park, Site #4
Costumes
Meat is occasionally available for costume design and creation. When they are, they love to collaborate on functional, surrealist visions and are often willing to hand stitch the pieces to exactly fit the performers form and range of motion.