Lady Dicks and Lesbian Brothers
Staging the Unimaginable at the WOW Cafe Theatre
Kate Davy
Publisher’s Note
‘A rich and detailed picture of a particular historical moment that has now passed . . . I found myself immersed in the world of the East Village theatre scene and its connections to the larger world of
feminism, theatre, and politics. Davy’s longstanding association with this world pays off handsomely—it is impossible to imagine that anyone could write a more informative portrait.’
—Charlotte Canning, University of Texas at Austin
Out of a small, hand-to-mouth, women’s theater collective called the WOW Café located on the lower east side of Manhattan, there emerged some of the most important theater troupes and performance artists of the 1980s and 1990s, including the Split Britches Company, the Five
Lesbian Brothers, Carmelita Tropicana, Holly Hughes, Lisa Kron, Deb Margolin, Reno, Peggy Shaw, and Lois Weaver. Putting onstage a witty, hilarious, gender-bending, and erotically charged aesthetic aimed at women in general and lesbians in particular, WOW came on the cultural scene at a moment when the fundamental impulses underpinning the women’s movement were being questioned and rethought.
Parody, cross-dressing, zany comedy, and unbridled eroticism have been hallmarks of WOW performances from its inception. Its ‘system of anarchy,’ an organizational philosophy that prevails to this day, has paradoxically given WOW amazing staying power after other avantgarde theater ventures have long vanished. Remarkably, thirty years after its founding, the WOW Café Theatre continues to nurture fledgling women writers, designers, and performers who create important performance work. Theater and performance scholar Kate Davy’s critical history of WOW is based on extensive research that includes in-depth interviews with WOW veterans; reviews of the earliest productions; and rare, unpublished photographs.
Kate Davy is Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan- Dearborn. Her previous books include Richard Foreman: Plays and Manifestos and Richard Foreman and the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre.
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Details
| ISBN | 9780472071227 |
| Genre | Performing Arts |
| Publication Date | 29-Jul-10 |
| Publisher | University of Michigan Press |
| Format | Hardcover |
| No. of Pages | 266 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| Subject | Lesbian Theater; Lesbian Theater – New York (State) – New York; Lesbian Theater/ New York (State)/ New York; Music-halls (Variety-theaters, Cabarets, Etc.) – New York (State) – New York – History – 20th Centur; Music-halls (Variety-theaters, Cabarets, Etc.)/ New York (State)/ New York/ History/ 20th Century |
| BookID | 6477 |
