Well, okay, partly for the obvious reasons: he owns the Belasco theater, prancing and prowling and preening around the stage in four-inch heels and a wig the size of Rhode Island. He jumps from the roof to the hood of a full-sized beater of a car, climbs the theater walls (literally) with one hand, holding a mic in the other, negotiating its wire while singing in practically every way a human can sing. He goes from poignant to punk—legit, flat-out punk—with such complete authority that every time he shifts gears you think he’s found the thing he was truly meant to do.

But that’s not why he’s amazing.

The real power here is in the quiet moments beneath the glitter and the fury, when Hedwig unfurls her story for us, piece by tantalizing piece. It’s like a strip tease rendered in language, and Harris gives it to us with that combination of precision and ease that comes from being truly present: entirely here, entirely now. It’s powerful because you cannot be truly present if you’re worried about whether people are liking you, or still mad about that thing your boyfriend did, or dreaming about the future.

In a theater, true presence is pure openness. And pure openness is pure generosity. It’s the courage to be completely vulnerable in front of a thousand strangers because you believe that acknowledging what it is to be human, in all its glory and ridiculousness and pain and joy and bitterness and warmth, is what an actor does. Because most of the time, most of us don’t have the courage to do it for ourselves.