Dress Suits to Hire (1987)
Dress Suits to Hire uses images from pulp fiction and film noir to portray the erotic cat and mouse relationship between characters Deluxe and Michigan, two women who live in a clothing store. Heated fantasies, brassy broads and sexual charades make for a carnivorous free-for-all. Holly Hughes, Lois Weaver, and Peggy Shaw focused this collaboration on the visibility and complexity of women’s desire in general and lesbian eroticism in particular.
Dress Suits to Hire was developed at at WOW Café Theater with a full production in the summer of 1988 at Performance Space 122 in NYC. The performance toured extensively to venues such as Performance Space 122, Sushi Performance Gallery in California, Life on the Water Theater in California, Women’s Interart Center, NYC (1988). Peggy Shaw received a 1988 Village Voice OBIE Award for her performance. In 1989, Women’s Interart Theatre produced the play for an extended run. In 1998, Dress Suits to Hire performed at Theatre Exile, Santa Fe, NM and the Edinburgh Festival.
In 2004, the company underwent a three-week performance translation workshop with a Taiwanese women's theatre company creating a cultural and linguistic translation of Dress Suits For Hire. The resulting performance was presented at the Taiwan Women's Theatre Festival in Taipei, Taiwan, (Spring 2004). This project was funded in part by the British Council.
In 2005, the company were awarded an Artist Residency at the University of Texas where the piece was restaged 18 years later with a focus on the effects of the passage of time between the production and the re-production of a performance and on the relationship between the ageing body and eroticism. These re-stagings were performed at venues including Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University (2006) and Dartington College of Arts (2007); The Drill Hall, London (February 2005); The Off-Center Theatre and University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, (May 2005); LaMama, Etc NY (June 2005); PSi#11 Brown University (2005); Throws Like A Girl Festival, Austin Texas (2005). The revival was nominated for a 2005 GLAAD Media award for Off Broadway performance.
Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw
Split Britches
Holly Hughes, Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw
Lois Weaver
Performed:
Produced:
Written:
Directed:
Full footage of the performance can be found here.
