Lois Weaver is one of the world’s leading figures in feminist and lesbian performance, a true pioneer in the growing field. This book offers the first book-length assessment of her career and work, tracing its history, aesthetics, principles, inspirations, innovations, and more. Contributors include Weaver’s most important collaborators from throughout her career, as well as many of the leading feminist theorists, journalists, and performers of the past forty years. The book also includes interviews not just with Weaver, but also with her partner, in life and performance, Peggy Shaw, and groundbreaking theater maker Muriel Miguel. The result is a book that is truly unprecedented, a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated celebration of an incredible career.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Foreword (Peggy Shaw)
Introduction: welcome home (Jen Harvie)
How do you start?
Red pajamas (Lois Weaver)
Pink Tornado from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Places to start (Jen Harvie)
Lois Weaver: the college years (Charles L. Hayes)
Jen Harvie interviews Lois Weaver (Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver)
Lois Weaver interviews Muriel Miguel (Jean Weaver and Muriel Miguel)
Virginia Started Over from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
What does it mean to be femme?
Virginia Was the East from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Subject and Object from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Jesus Wept from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Citizen femme (Jen Harvie)
A femme on her own (Peggy Phelan)
A woman disguised as a woman: Lois Weaver’s fem(me)inist performance (Lisa Duggan)
For Lois: femme glorious (Joan Nestle)
Lois Weaver has great hair (Moe Angelos)
A view from the bottom (Sue-Ellen Case)
A view from the top (Lois Weaver)
Femme Cha-cha from Lust and Comfort (Lois Weaver)
Oh, for the love of work!
Lois, love, and work (Jen Harvie)
Looking back from behind (Deb Margolin)
Fire in My Pocket from Split Britches (Deb Margolin)
Weaver’s web (Stacy Makishi)
On Lois, for Lois, because of Lois (Jill Dolan)
The permanence of a performance (Jess Dobkin)
A queer family tree (The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein)
Lois (Elin Diamond)
On the road (Helen Paris)
Staying on the road (Leslie Hill)
Floods from Miss America (Lois Weaver)
You Never Told me from Miss America (Lois Weaver)
How do you make things work?
The good guide for creating a non cooperative; or, how to organise a collective that will last for more than 30 years (Lois Weaver)
Imagine it, make it, change it (Jen Harvie)
Incandescence: The early years at WOW (Cynthia Carr)
WOW: and uncooperative cooperative (Holly Hughes)
Lois Weaver makes the world a less scary place (Rosana Cade)
Taking a seat at the Table (Deirdre Heddon)
Long Table Protocol (Lois Weaver)
Entertaining discussion: The Long Table and Porch Sitting (Geraldine Harris)
How to behave at a Porch Sitting (Lois Weaver)
Lois Weaver and the ethics and etiquette of the Long Table (Diana Taylor)
Collaboration (Lois Keidan)
Kinship (Lois Weaver)
Why Tammy? Why Not?
Tammy interviews Lois (Lois Weaver)
‘I Got into the Wrong Car in Memphis’, ‘Demented Forsythia, a Love Song’, and ‘How Do You Sing a Broken Song’ (Lois Weaver)
Tammy WhyNOT: stage/life superhero (Jen Harvie)
What Tammy taught me…about surviving as a poor girl in the academy (Kim Solga)
Making fun and making time: pedagogic principles (Erin Hurley)
Cupcake velocity: the subversive expertise of Lois Weaver and Tammy WhyNOT (Johanna Linsley)
‘Stay Gone’ (Lois Weaver)
What would you hang on the line?
String of Lights adapted from Salad of the Bad Café (Lois Weaver)
Diary of a Domestic Terrorist (Lois Weaver)
Hidden treasures (Jen Harvie)
Lois performs in Aotearoa New Zealand (Catherine Silverstone)
‘Everything’s breakable’- or what I learned from Lois Weaver (Benjamin Gillespie)
Talking about when the Tide Is Out (Lois Weaver and Stacy Makishi)
Lois’s hidden treasures: What Tammy Needs to Know About Prison (Caoimhe McAvinchey)
Meeting Lois Weaver (Anne Tallentire)
Dear Carmen (Paul Heritage)
Laundry from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Afterwords
33 ways to start (Lois Weaver)
Still counting (Lois Weaver)
Postcards
Lois Weaver Timeline (Jen Harvie with Lois Weaver)
Acknowledgements
Contributor biographies
Works cited and additional
Citations of Weaver’s work
Index
Introduction: welcome home (Jen Harvie)
How do you start?
Red pajamas (Lois Weaver)
Pink Tornado from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Places to start (Jen Harvie)
Lois Weaver: the college years (Charles L. Hayes)
Jen Harvie interviews Lois Weaver (Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver)
Lois Weaver interviews Muriel Miguel (Jean Weaver and Muriel Miguel)
Virginia Started Over from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
What does it mean to be femme?
Virginia Was the East from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Subject and Object from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Jesus Wept from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Citizen femme (Jen Harvie)
A femme on her own (Peggy Phelan)
A woman disguised as a woman: Lois Weaver’s fem(me)inist performance (Lisa Duggan)
For Lois: femme glorious (Joan Nestle)
Lois Weaver has great hair (Moe Angelos)
A view from the bottom (Sue-Ellen Case)
A view from the top (Lois Weaver)
Femme Cha-cha from Lust and Comfort (Lois Weaver)
Oh, for the love of work!
Lois, love, and work (Jen Harvie)
Looking back from behind (Deb Margolin)
Fire in My Pocket from Split Britches (Deb Margolin)
Weaver’s web (Stacy Makishi)
On Lois, for Lois, because of Lois (Jill Dolan)
The permanence of a performance (Jess Dobkin)
A queer family tree (The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein)
Lois (Elin Diamond)
On the road (Helen Paris)
Staying on the road (Leslie Hill)
Floods from Miss America (Lois Weaver)
You Never Told me from Miss America (Lois Weaver)
How do you make things work?
The good guide for creating a non cooperative; or, how to organise a collective that will last for more than 30 years (Lois Weaver)
Imagine it, make it, change it (Jen Harvie)
Incandescence: The early years at WOW (Cynthia Carr)
WOW: and uncooperative cooperative (Holly Hughes)
Lois Weaver makes the world a less scary place (Rosana Cade)
Taking a seat at the Table (Deirdre Heddon)
Long Table Protocol (Lois Weaver)
Entertaining discussion: The Long Table and Porch Sitting (Geraldine Harris)
How to behave at a Porch Sitting (Lois Weaver)
Lois Weaver and the ethics and etiquette of the Long Table (Diana Taylor)
Collaboration (Lois Keidan)
Kinship (Lois Weaver)
Why Tammy? Why Not?
Tammy interviews Lois (Lois Weaver)
‘I Got into the Wrong Car in Memphis’, ‘Demented Forsythia, a Love Song’, and ‘How Do You Sing a Broken Song’ (Lois Weaver)
Tammy WhyNOT: stage/life superhero (Jen Harvie)
What Tammy taught me…about surviving as a poor girl in the academy (Kim Solga)
Making fun and making time: pedagogic principles (Erin Hurley)
Cupcake velocity: the subversive expertise of Lois Weaver and Tammy WhyNOT (Johanna Linsley)
‘Stay Gone’ (Lois Weaver)
What would you hang on the line?
String of Lights adapted from Salad of the Bad Café (Lois Weaver)
Diary of a Domestic Terrorist (Lois Weaver)
Hidden treasures (Jen Harvie)
Lois performs in Aotearoa New Zealand (Catherine Silverstone)
‘Everything’s breakable’- or what I learned from Lois Weaver (Benjamin Gillespie)
Talking about when the Tide Is Out (Lois Weaver and Stacy Makishi)
Lois’s hidden treasures: What Tammy Needs to Know About Prison (Caoimhe McAvinchey)
Meeting Lois Weaver (Anne Tallentire)
Dear Carmen (Paul Heritage)
Laundry from Faith and Dancing (Lois Weaver)
Afterwords
33 ways to start (Lois Weaver)
Still counting (Lois Weaver)
Postcards
Lois Weaver Timeline (Jen Harvie with Lois Weaver)
Acknowledgements
Contributor biographies
Works cited and additional
Citations of Weaver’s work
Index