The HOT! Festival is the world's longest continuously running LGBTQ festival of new theater, music, dance and literature and serves as a laboratory for inter-disciplinary queer performance from emerging and established artists. With noted downtown impresario Earl Dax as the 2009 HOT! Festival Director, this year's HOT! will draw from an international roster artists who have become headliners in the underground performance world and will be presented on New York's newest theater by an organization that encourages and develops all new artists to challenge themselves and their audience. HOT! is where tomorrow's LGBTQ artists are born and nurtured.