Star & Stan is a performance duo from artists, Kate Williams and Reed Rushes. Focused on issues of gender and sexuality Williams and Rushes perform as a fantasy couple; the heterosexual, his and her, power couple, Star & Stan.

Star, played by Williams, wears faux-geisha makeup combined with the fashion of white upper class American women inspired by William’s suburban home town. As Stan, Rushes, is a high powered business man, painted silver with assless trousers. Described as “something people have never seen before”( Elephant Magazine) the pair unpack structures of power, labor, gender and capital through the mechanism of gay shame. 

They mix the perverse and the absurd with pop culture and Americana tropes creating surreal wild shows that merge “lovemaking and conflict” (Paper Magazine), “passion and aggression” (Brooklyn Rail). The high glamour, grotesque, fame hungry fantasy world of Star & Stan leaves audiences with the sensation that they’ve done “poppers in a bathtub full of money” (audience member).

Star & Stan have shown at Performance Space New York, The Park Avenue Armory, Basilica Hudson, Art Omi, Centre for Performance Research, Entrance, Pageant and Les Urbaines Switzerland as well as at raves, in the streets and on beaches. They are currently working on their first Star & Stan film. Williams holds a BA in Dance and Human Rights from Bard College and the Ana Itelman Prize for Choreography. Rushes holds a Master in Fine Art from Bard College NY and the Bard College teaching Fellowship in Critical Cartography and Performance.

As of September 2025