Over three decades, New York City’s fabulously gay theatre troupe the Hot Peaches astonished audiences from Manhattan’s thriving underground to theatres, clubs, and gay festivities all over Europe. In this refreshing memoir, Jimmy Camicia, the company’s founder, playwright, director, and reluctant star, exposes the improbable path that led him to the glamorous, often gritty stages of international alternative theatre and the most outrageous band of collaborators you can possibly imagine. In dozens of musical plays through the years, the Hot Peaches celebrated, chronicled, and sometimes led the way through the highs and lows of the gay revolution. Camicia’s scripts attacked the issues head-on with humor and pizazz, from life-in-drag to outing to the AIDS crisis to “Chicks with Dicks,” one of his songs for “The Fall of the Wall Revue.” In this frank account he introduces the unique real-life characters who inspired him and sometimes broke his heart and shares the pleasures and rewards of an adventurous life on and off the stage.
From the Introduction by Michael Smith: “Picking up the torch from the Cockettes via the Angels of Light, both short-lived glitter-drag troupes, the Hot Peaches emerged in New York in 1972 and eventually went far beyond the camping and strutting of their models. Self-defined as a gay theater company from the outset, the Peaches participated in, chronicled, and at times led the dramatic revolution in gay consciousness that unfolded from the clandestine fifties through Stonewall, the excesses of the 1970s, and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, helping to open the door to today’s acceptance of gay marriage. The company, which did its last show in 1998, is sometimes remembered as a drag troupe. In fact, drag was a small part of its identity, though gender-bending was always part of the trip as gay and lesbian evolved into GLBT.”
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