- Penny Arcade (performer)
Penny Arcade is the stage name of Susana Ventura (born 1950), a
performance art ist andplaywright based inNew York City .infobox actress
birthname=Susana Ventura
birthdate=birth year and age|1950
occupation=Film , stageactress
spouse=Chris RaelVentura's long association with avant-garde performance in New York began at age 17, when she performed with
John Vaccaro 'sPlayhouse of the Ridiculous , and appeared in theJackie Curtis play "Femme Fatale", followed by an appearance in theAndy Warhol /Paul Morrissey movie "Women in Revolt ". She traveled in Europe during the 1970s, and returned to New York in 1981, where she worked with many underground theatre artists including Jack Smith,Charles Ludlam and Hibiscus's Angels of Light. She was a close friend ofQuentin Crisp , and the two created a long-running performance/interview piece, "The Last Will and Testament of Quentin Crisp".She has been performing her own monologues since 1985, mostly in New York; in the 1990s she toured internationally with her most popular show, "Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore!", which, like much of her work, was an opinionated commentary on
sexual norm s andcensorship and also featured a chorus of strippers. In 1998 she performed at the first Gay Shame event at DUMBA in Brooklyn and appears in thedocumentary film of the event byScott Berry , entitled "Gay Shame '98 ". Her 2002 performance "New York Values", which also toured abroad, dealt with another of her major concerns: the loss of cultural identity in New York during the Giuliani years.1988 and 1989, the "New York Times" published articles stating that Penny Arcade created a character named
Margo Howard-Howard , a 50-year-old drag queen with a scandalous past, for her performances. ["Weekender Guide," New York Times, August 4, 1989] The "Times" specifically refers to the Howard-Howard character as "patently unbelievable." A later article in the "Times" specifies that Arcade's monologue was "based on real Lower East Side residents," and Howard-Howard did receive an obituary in "The Village Voice".Penny Arcade is a co-founder of the
Lower East Side Biography Project , a video production and oral history workshop that trains participants in documentary filmmaking and preserves the stories of Lower Manhattan artists and activists. Recently profiled inidividuals have includedHerbert Huncke ,Jayne County , andMarty Matz , among others.She is married to the musician
Chris Rael , of the bandChurch of Betty . She also has three siblings, and many nieces and nephews, all of whom live inConnecticut .References
External links
*imdb|0033485|Penny Arcade
*amg name|2:2086|Penny Arcade
* [http://www.pennyarcade.tv Penny Arcade's website]
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