Formation | 1989 |
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Type | Theatre group |
Location | |
Website | www |
The Five Lesbian Brothers is an American theater company that focuses on plays and literature on lesbian and feminist topics. Their work has been produced and performed in several cities in the United States, and they have been recognized with several industry awards. Reviewers have described their performance style as being "loosely structured" and "outrageous", more focused on the expression of ideas and themes than on theatrical conventions of the time and genre. Their works are created collaboratively by the troupe, made up of Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey and Lisa Kron. [1]
The Five Lesbian Brothers started in the 1980s, first performing as satirists at the WOW Cafe in East Village, Manhattan and then producing the play Voyage to Lesbos there. Their next works were Brave Smiles, a satire about lesbian stereotypes, [2] and The Secretaries , a play about caricatures of lesbians and feminists, both produced at the New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW). [1] The Secretaries was reviewed in The New York Times and earned the Brothers increased recognition and a successful production run. Their next production, Brides of the Moon, was a bigger and more expensive production that featured a more elaborate set and costumes than previous productions. It performed poorly and was not well-received, however, and soon after The Five Lesbian Brothers stopped performing. [1]
The Five Lesbian Brothers returned to performing in 2005 with Oedipus at Palm Springs, produced also by NYTW. [3] Whereas earlier plays had been produced for a more specialized audience at the WOW Cafe interested in feminist and lesbian topics, the production of Oedipus at Palm Springs was noted for its success with the more mainstream audience of "conventional white, middle-class New Yorkers" at the NYTW. [1] The individual members of the Brothers have gone on to successful solo careers, but they have not collaborated as a company since 2005. [4]
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100.
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theater noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 East 4th Street between Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it houses a 198-seat theater for its mainstage productions, and a 75-seat black box theatre for staged readings and developing work in the building next door, at 83 East 4th Street.
Carolyn Gage is an American playwright, actor, theatrical director and author. She has written nine books on lesbian theater and sixty-five plays, musicals, and one-woman shows. A lesbian feminist, her work emphasizes non-traditional roles for women and lesbian characters.
John Collins is an American experimental theatre director and designer. He is the founder and artistic director of Elevator Repair Service (ERS) and has directed or co-directed all of its productions since 1991. Most notable among his work with ERS is Gatz, a verbatim performance of the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Ellen Stewart was an American theatre director and producer and the founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. During the 1950s, she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.
Holly Hughes is an American lesbian performance artist.
Elizabeth S. "Lisa" Kron is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for writing the lyrics and book to the musical Fun Home for which she won both the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Fun Home was also awarded the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015 and the 2014 Obie Award for writing for musical theater.
More Fire! Productions was a women's theatre collective active in New York City from 1980 to 1988. It was founded by Robin Epstein and Dorothy Cantwell and based in the East Village section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. More Fire! Productions created and produced eight full-length plays between 1980 and 1988, becoming known as "one of the city's leading women's theatre groups" for its contributions to the downtown, experimental theatre, and women's and lesbian theatre scenes of the 1980s. Epstein and Cantwell co-wrote, produced, and performed in the company's first three plays: As the Burger Broils (1980), The Exorcism of Cheryl (1981), and Junk Love (1981), which had numerous runs and became a neighborhood cult classic, "the longest running show on Avenue A." Epstein then wrote and produced The Godmother (1983). Novelist and writer Sarah Schulman joined the company in 1983 and collaborated on the writing and performing of three later plays: Art Failures (1983), Whining and Dining (1984), and Epstein on the Beach (1985). The final play, Beyond Bedlam (1987), was written and produced by Epstein, who was the only person involved in all More Fire! plays.
Ana María Simo is a New York playwright, essayist and novelist. Born in Cuba, educated in France, and writing in English, she has collaborated with such experimental artists as composer Zeena Parkins, choreographer Stephanie Skura and filmmakers Ela Troyano and Abigail Child.
Luis Alfaro is a Chicano performance artist, writer, theater director, and social activist.
Split Britches is an American performance troupe, which has been producing work internationally since 1980. Academic Sue Ellen Case says "their work has defined the issues and terms of academic writing on lesbian theater, butch-femme role playing, feminist mimesis, and the spectacle of desire". In New York City Split Britches have long standing relationships with La Mama Experimental Theatre Company, where they are a resident company, Wow Café, which Weaver and Shaw co-founded, and Dixon Place.
Lois Weaver is a Guggenheim-winning American artist, activist, writer, director, and Professor of Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University of London. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Fellow in Engaging Science.
Magali Alabau is a Cuban-American poet, theater director, and actor. Born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, she has lived in New York since 1966. She co-founded the Spanish-English ensemble Teatro Dúo/Duo Theatre with Manuel Martín Jr. and the lesbian theater Medusa's Revenge with Ana María Simo. She began writing poetry after retiring from theater, and published eight books between 1986 and 2015.
Spiderwoman Theater is an Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Named after Spider Grandmother from Hopi mythology, it is the longest running Indigenous theatre company in the United States.
WOW Café Theater is a feminist theater space and collective in East Village in New York City. In the mid-1980s, WOW Cafe Theater was central to the avant garde theatre and performance art scene in the East Village, New York City. Among the artists who have presented at the space are Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, Patricia Ione LLoyd, Lisa Kron, Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, Dancenoise, Carmelita Tropicana, Eileen Myles, Split Britches, Seren Divine, Johnny Science, and The Five Lesbian Brothers.
Dress Suits to Hire is a play written by Holly Hughes and originally performed by the Lesbian and Feminist performance group, Split Britches. It premiered in 1987 at Performance Space 122 in Manhattan's East Village. The play is essentially a lesbian love story told in the overheated style of film noir, also drawing upon images from pulp fiction; The show has been revived several times since its premiere, with the original cast of Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver (Michigan) reprising their roles. The show won OBIE Awards for both Shaw and Hughes.
Hot Peaches was a gay, political, NYC theatre company in New York City that would put on one play a week, active from the 1970s-1990s. Hot Peaches was founded by Jimmy Camicia in 1972, who encountered a group of drag queens and began writing work for them to perform. Their work has been described as "political camp, dominated by drag".
Jacob Padrón is the Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre. He is also the Artistic Director of The Sol Project and a co-founder of the Artists' Anti-Racism Coalition.
Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins, and Wild Nights with Emily. Her feature films have been described as "madcap comedies with absurdist leanings" and are all centered around LGBT characters.
Noor Theatre Company is a New York City-based theatre organization founded in June 2010 that supports, develops, and produces the work of Middle Eastern Americans and artists of the diaspora. The group's aims to counter negative stereotypes through theatrical work that overcomes cultural differences.