Overview

Out of a small, hand-to-mouth women's theatre collective called the WOW Café located on the lower east side of Manhattan there emerged some of the most important theatre troupes and performance artists of the 1980s and 1990s. Appearing on the cultural scene at a critical turning point in both the women's movement and feminist theory, WOW put a witty, hilarious, gender-bending, and erotically charged aesthetic on stage for women in general and lesbians in particular. Featured performers included the Split Britches Company, the Five Lesbian Brothers, Carmelita Tropicana, Holly Hughes, Lisa Kron, Deb Margolin, Reno, Peggy Shaw, and Lois Weaver. For three decades the WOW Café Theatre has nurtured fledgling women writers, designers, and performers who continue to create important performance work. Lady Dicks and Lesbian Brothers offers the first critical history of the WOW Café, based on dozens of interviews with WOW performers and other participants, newspaper reviews of the earliest productions, and unpublished photographs, and suggests why the collective has had such amazing longevity and an enduring legacy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Catherine Davy
Publisher:   The University of Michigan Press
Imprint:   The University of Michigan Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 0.60cm
Weight:   0.425kg
ISBN:  

9780472051229

ISBN 10:   0472051229
Pages:   264
Publication Date:   30 July 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Reviews

Davy uses first-person insights, interviews with WOW members, and archival records, however scant, to position WOW Cafe Theatre within an ever-shifting context of US cultural production. At the same time, she works to recoup the theater's reputation from the slippages of collective memory. Choice (Highly Recommended) --S. R. Irelan Choice (05/01/2011)

From Hughes's The Lady Dick to the performances of The Five Lesbian Brothers, WOW Cafe Theatre has offered such a space, and Davy's impeccably researched and well-argued book is a testimony to the ongoing fascination of, and the important cultural contributions made by, feminist, lesbian, and queer performers in the United States. --;i>Theatre Journal --Dirk Gindt Theatre Journal

Author Information

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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