In light of the shutdown of live performance in New York City, with her theatre partner Steve Zehentner, the powerhouse that is Penny Arcade, have started a Patreon page – Penny Arcade Performance, which is creating videos, performance, readings, biographies and live streaming.
How Patreon Works: Patreon is based on the pay-what-you-wish monthly subscriber model. By subscribing, you will have exclusive access to Penny Arcade content.
“I will be releasing archival videos of all my full-length plays, unique live-streamed events, serialized readings of my developing memoir, essays, poetry, biographies and full length interviews from our Lower East Side Biography Project.” Penny Arcade, May 2020.
Setting up a monthly subscription takes just a couple minutes. Supporters can pay through their credit card or through Pay Pal.
ARCHIVAL PERFORMANCES: With the exception of Longing Lasts Longer and Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!, few audiences have gotten to experience Penny Arcade’s full length shows. Moreover, most shows, in keeping with the strictures of American not-for-profit, were never performed for more than 16 performances, or if commissioned out of the USA, were never presented in America.
For Patreon subscribers, Penny and Steve will dig deep into their archive of 16 full length shows, with over 800 performances performed in over 65 cities around the world.
Over time supporters will gain access to Penny Arcade’s entire body of work.
“Our first post on Patreon is my 1990 play La Miseria – a look into my Italian-American working class roots, set against the backdrop of the AIDS pandemic. We followed up La Miseria with a 76-minute film of the 1995 interview I conducted with Quentin Crisp in Vienna, The Last Will and Testament of Quentin Crisp. Standby for my international sensation, Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!, from several locations around the world; our award winning Longing Lasts Longer from St. Anne’s in Brooklyn, Sisi Sings The Blues, the post-modernist millennial opera epic from Vienna, and much, much more.” Penny Arcade, May 2020.
LOWER EAST SIDE BIOGRAPHY PROJECT: In addition to Penny’s performance work and livestreams, they will also present complete unedited interviews from their Lower East Side Biography Project. Imagine being able to watch the full unedited footage of interviews with Judith Malina, Jonas Mekas, Holly Woodlawn or Tom O’Horgan.
Between the Lower East Side Biography Project video archive and Penny’s own video archive, they have over 2300 entries of shows and biographies. So, for subscribers, every two weeks something great will come your way on Patreon.
“If you think you know my work, you haven’t seen anything yet,” xoPenny
To become a Patron visit: www.patreon.com/Penny_Arcade?fan_landing=true
ABOUT PENNY ARCADE: Penny Arcade occupies a rare position in the American avant-garde, and now in her 52nd year of performing she shines, as Patti Smith recently told her, “with an unmistakable inner glow”. A runaway at thirteen, a reform-school graduate at sixteen, a performer in the legendary New York City Play-House of the Ridiculous at seventeen, and an escapee from Andy Warhol’s Factory scene at twenty, Penny Arcade emerged after a long apprenticeship in radical, queer, rock and roll theatre at the age of 34 in 1985 as a primal force on the New York art scene and an originator of what came to be called performance art. Arcade’s brand of high camp, high content, street-smart, rock and roll experimental theatre showmanship has influenced generations of artists all over the world and her take no prisoners authenticity, humour, honesty and wisdom have made her an icon of artistic resistance the world over.
www.facebook.com/pennyarcadesuperstar
Lead photo: Penny Arcade in the 2018 production of Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! at Performance Space New York © Albie Mitchell
Get Social