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Drag & Performance
Theatrical Illusion
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 The
Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre (Gender in
Performance) by Laurence Senelick
The First Major history of cross-dressing in
theatre Whether it's Ziggie Stardust strutting the stage in a
white satin gown or a troupe of Kabuki actors masquerading as
women to a mesmerized male audience, the evocative transvestite
performer offers a subliminal homoerotic fantasy and provides the
lasting image of the show long after its closing night.
Award-winning theater historian and critic Laurence Senelick
synthesizes a vast array of material from archival research and a
lifetime of theater-going to provide a monumental record of
cross-dressing on the stage. Pantomimists, dame comedians,
principal boys, glamour drag artistes, androgyne rock stars, and
male impersonators are traced from their roots in tribal ritual
and Christian pageantry to today's forms -- the dandyism of Little
Richard, the queer sensibility of Sylvester and the Coquettes, the
thrift-shop drag of Boy George -- capturing the allure and
excitement of gender-bending performance: its rebellion, it's
public spectacle, its amusements, its tragedies, its escapism.
Senelick brilliantly elucidates the dynamic between the theater as
both mainstream forum and anti-establishment haven for misfits,
ravers, radical activists, and outcasts.
With 100 rare photographs, The Changing Room
offers a voyeuristic vision of a lifestyle watched by many, but
lived by few, and a compulsively readable, authoritative account
of the theater at its most sexual and effective.
About
the Author
Laurence Senelick, Fletcher Professor of Drama at Tufts
University, has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is
the author of several books on the theater, including The
Chekov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance, and the
editor of Lovesick: Modernist Plays of Same-Sex Love
1894-1925 (Routledge).
 Routledge
Reader in Politics and Performance by Lizbeth Goodman
(Editor), Jane De Gay (Editor)
This book brings together key writings on politics,
ideology and performance, providing discussion on everything from
sexuality in performance to theatre games, power and politics in
the theatre to multimedia events, intercultural persepectives to
performance theories. This comprehensive collection is brought
together by Lizbeth Goodman and Jane de Gay, who have previously
collaborated on the highly successful Routledge Reader in
Gender and Performance (1998).
Includes the writings of: Antonin Artaud,
Eugenio Barba, Herbert Blau, Augusto Boal, Bertolt Brecht, Peter
Brook, Judith Butler, Marvin Carlson, Sue-Ellen Case, Coco Fusco,
Jerzy Grotowski, Tony Kushner, Richard Schechner, Rebecca
Schneider, Constantin Stanislavski and Raymond Williams.
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By Kara Kruger
The wonderful sites of Brandy Wells, Ms. Sinthia D. Meanor,
and Natasha Knight...
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David de Alba, a
Cuban/American legendary performer of Finocchio Club fame, sings
"live" to pre-recorded audio tapes of his former
musicians, led by pianist/arranger and conductor the fabulous Bill
Bullard (see pix on BIO page). He also has his own
arrangements for a "live" musical group.
David's specialty forté act is a "Loving Tribute to Judy
Garland" in glamorous costumes. "The
Hobo," "The Happy Clown", and "The French
Pierrot" are three other character portrayals by David a La
Garland style.
David as Liza Minnelli: David's own
International character creation "Boy-Chic" with dance
routines, Broadway songs, hits from the 40's, 50's & 60's,
Latin-American tunes, and special tributes in song to French
singer Edith Piaf and to famous Cuban singer Olga Chorens, plus
David's take-off rendition of Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond from
the movie "Sunset Boulevard".
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Excerpt:
Late one night in the spring of '84 a drunken
group of friends, seeking more diversions, closed the Pyramid Club
and traipsed over to Tompkins Square Park, six-packs in tow. Brian
Butterick, Michael "Kitty" Ullman, Wendy Wild, The "Lady"
Bunny and a few members of the Fleshtones were horsing around in
the bandshell when someone (no one remembers who, it's all such a
blur) came up with the idea of putting on a show - a day-long drag
festival - and calling it Wigstock. It was Bunny who was
foolhardy enough to take the idea seriously, going recklessly
ahead and getting the necessary permits...
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There is nothing better than walking in to your
favorite hang out, in 5 inch platform boots, fishnet stocking, a
red velvet dress, and red lipstick. It will make you feel like you
are on top of the world...
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A set of fine photos.
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Screaming
Queens was founded several years ago by Alex Heimberg, more
commonly known to New York's Downtown glitterati as "Miss
Understood," the "Technicolor Goddess" of
nightlife. "When I first went clubbing, I was stunned by what
I saw." reminisces Heimberg, "A whole world of surreal
looking characters that never left their homes before midnight. I
had seen people dressed in drag before, but in New York, drag
meant something totally different. It wasn't necessarily about
passing as a woman, but about looking outrageous, feeling
fabulous, and getting attention."
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Dedicated to providing a safe and welcome place
for male-to-female and female-to-male Transsexuals, Transvestites,
Transgender, Drag Queens, Drag Kings and their significant others
to get together with like-minded individuals.
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Fabulous Websites:
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