MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 03869cam a2200373 a 4500
001 012581698-7
005 20101109124700.0
008 100302s2010 miuaf b s001 0 eng
010 $a 2010007942
020 $a9780472071227 (cloth : alk. paper)
020 $a047207122X (cloth : alk. paper)
035 0 $aocn550553840
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dYDX$dYDXCP$dCDX$dBWX
043 $an-us-ny
050 00 $aPN1968.U5$bD38 2010
082 00 $a792.02/2$222
100 1 $aDavy, Kate.
245 10 $aLady dicks and lesbian brothers :$bstaging the unimaginable at the WOW Café Theatre /$cKate Davy.
260 $aAnn Arbor :$bUniversity of Michigan Press,$cc2010.
300 $axi, 233 p., [10] p. of plates :$bill. ;$c24 cm.
490 1 $aTriangulations: lesbian/gay/queer-- theater/drama/performance
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 201-224) and index.
505 0 $aIntroducing WOW: "A miracle on E. 4th Street" -- Women are laughing again: allied faces -- Sex, drag, and rock 'n' roles: the festivals -- Feminist space and a system of anarchy: the storefront -- Staging the unimaginable: New York's East Village club scene -- Challenging whiteness: the fourth-floor walk-up -- "Learning to walk on our hands" -- Appendix: WOW Production history.
520 $a"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. The WOW (Women's One World) Café Theatre appeared on the cultural scene at a critical turning point in both the women's movement and feminist theory, putting a witty, hilarious, gender-bending and erotically charged aesthetic on the stage for women in general and lesbians in particular. The storefront that became the WOW Café Theatre saw dozens of excitingly original and enormously funny performances created, performed, and turned over at lightning speed--a kind of "hit and run" theater.
520 $aAs the demands on the space increased, the women behind WOW organized as a collective and moved their theater to an abandoned doll factory where it continues to operate today. For three decades the WOW Café has nurtured fledgling women writers, designers, and performers who continue to create important performance work. This book provides a critical history of this avant-garde venture whose ongoing "system of anarchy" has been largely responsible for its thirty-year staying power, after dozens of other women's theaters have collapsed. WOW artists were creating a wholly original cultural landscape across which women could represent themselves on their own terms. Parody, cross-dressing, zany comedy, and an unbridled eroticism are hallmarks of WOW's aesthetic, combined--importantly and powerfully--with a presumptive address to the audience as if everyone onstage, in the audience, and in the world is lesbian.
520 $aThe author's research included in-depth interviews with WOW veterans; newspaper reviews of the earliest productions; and rare, unpublished photographs. The book also includes a chronology of productions that have highlighted WOW's performance schedule since the early '80s."--Publisher.
610 20 $aWOW Cafe Theatre (New York, N.Y.)
650 0 $aMusic-halls (Variety-theaters, cabarets, etc.)$zNew York (State)$zNew York$xHistory$y20th century.
650 0 $aLesbian theater$zNew York (State)$zNew York.
776 08 $iOnline version:$aDavy, Kate.$tLady dicks and lesbian brothers.$dAnn Arbor : University of Michigan Press, ©2010$w(OCoLC)760168373
830 0 $aTriangulations.
899 $a415_565646
988 $a20101001
906 $0DLC