From Publishers Weekly
In 2002, David Weissman's and Bill Weber's documentary The Cockettes brought the eponymous 1970s San Francisco glitter-rock drag theatrical troupe back into the spotlight. In this colorful account, Tent, one of the ensemble's few "real women," relives the glory days. Fleeing Detroit for San Francisco in 1969, Tent found some kindred souls, most of them drug-addled drag queens and all of them young and ambitious. The Cockettes were born soon after and performed in midnight musical extravaganzas at the Palace, a seedy Chinatown movie theater. Tent locates the Cockettes' origins in show biz and the avant-garde; one pioneering Cockette, Hibiscus (né George Harris Jr.), came from a family with deep roots in New York theater; another, Link Martin, had been a protégé of poet Helen Adam and the lover of Samuel R. Delany. In the background lurk the East Coast shadows of Andy Warhol's Factory and Charles Ludlam's Theater of the Ridiculous. In their prime, the Cockettes brought a masculinist energy to drag theater (they speckled their beards with glitter) and produced two dozen vaudeville pageants and several films, but drugs, internal rivalry and a New York performance debacle ended the Cockettes' reign in the fall of 1972. With earthy humor, Tent deftly juggles a huge cast of characters while providing a nostalgic trip through San Francisco's gender-bending heyday. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Although the Cockettes gave their last public performance in 1972, interest in the zany theatrical troupe was reawakened following the appearance of David Weissman and Bill Weber's documentary film The Cockettes (2002).Back in the day, an appreciative column by Rex Reed led to the San Francisco-based gender-bending and LSD-fueled act's playing New York, where many in an audience studded by the likes of John Lennon, Anthony Perkins, and Angela Lansbury walked out in disgust or frustration. Lansbury leaving an avant-garde performance was no kiss of death, of course, but productions like Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma were not instantly accessible, let alone entertaining, to audiences beyond the Cockettes' zany Bay-area home turf. Though the company lasted little more than two years, its outrageous performances and perspectives provide a book's worth of entertaining reminiscence for founding member Tent. Valuable as a cultural artifact, Tent's lighthearted chronicle also reminds us of what radical sixties-era theater was really like before big-budget behemoths like Hair and Oh! Calcutta adulterated revolutionary brio into bankable BO. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
David Weissman and Bill Weber's 2002 documentary, The Cockettes, wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival and shined a bright new light on the Cockettes. Now one of the founding members of the legendary troupe takes us inside this flamboyant ensemble of countercultural radicals, who decked themselves out in drag and glitter for a series of legendary midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Arriving in San Francisco in 1969 from suburban Detroit, Pam Tent met Hibiscus, a New York actor who had dropped out. One night, in burst of LSD-fueled spontaneity, Sweet Pam took to the stage in a cellophane hula skirt, when Hibiscus and a group of friends commandeered the stage of the Palace during The Nocturnal Dream Shows, a weekly midnight eclectic film series, to perform a chorus line dance to "Honky Tonk Woman." The Cockettes were born! Pam Tent's account recalls the heyday of the rebellious, gender-bending troupe, the inevitable infighting that accompanied fame, and finally how a Rex Reed column raving about the Cockettes led to a disastrous New York opening where the audience-which included John Lennon, Gore Vidal, Angela Lansbury and Anthony Perkins-walked out in droves. The Cockettes gave their last performance in the autumn of 1972. But despite their short life, the Cockettes' unique burst of cultural experimentation and artistic outrageousness continues to influence the worlds of theater, music, fashion, gay politics, gay spirituality, and urban club life.
After leaving the Cockettes, Pam Tent moved to New York City for a brief stint as a blues singer. Then it was back to the West Coast for a new career in film distribution and finally her current livelihood as an accountant. She still lives in the Bay Area, sharing her house with a small menagerie of animals.
Midnight at the Palace: My Life as a Fabulous Cockette FROM THE PUBLISHER
David Weissman and Bill Weber's 2002 documentary, The Cockettes, wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival and shined a bright new light on the Cockettes. Now one of the founding members of the legendary troupe takes us inside this flamboyant ensemble of countercultural radicals, who decked themselves out in drag and glitter for a series of legendary midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Arriving in San Francisco in 1969 from suburban Detroit, Pam Tent had dropped out of college to join the come-as-you-are party that was going on in San Francisco. There she met Hibiscus, a member of a commune called KaliFlower that was dedicated to distributing free food and to creating free art and theater. One night, in burst of LSD-fueled spontaneity, Sweet Pam took to the stage in a cellophane hula skirt, when Hibiscus and a group of friends commandeered the stage of the Palace during The Nocturnal Dream Shows, a weekly midnight eclectic film series, to perform a chorus line dance to "Honky Tonk Woman." The Cockettes were born! In their 2 1/2 year existence, The Cockettes created 20 exuberantly chaotic shows that had titles like "Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma" and "Pearls over Shanghai" and featured elaborate costumes and rebellious, gender-bending sexuality. Pam Tent's account recalls the heyday of the troupe, the inevitable infighting that accompanied fame, and finally how a Rex Reed column raving about the Cockette's led to a series of disastrous New York shows. At one show the opening-night audience—which included John Lennon, Gore Vidal, Angela Lansbury, and Anthony Perkins—walked out in droves. The Cockettes gave their last performance in the autumn of 1972. But despite their short life, the Cockette's unique burst of cultural experimentation and artistic outrageousness continues to influence the worlds of theater, music, fashion, gay politics, gay spirituality, and urban club life.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In 2002, David Weissman's and Bill Weber's documentary The Cockettes brought the eponymous 1970s San Francisco glitter-rock drag theatrical troupe back into the spotlight. In this colorful account, Tent, one of the ensemble's few "real women," relives the glory days. Fleeing Detroit for San Francisco in 1969, Tent found some kindred souls, most of them drug-addled drag queens and all of them young and ambitious. The Cockettes were born soon after and performed in midnight musical extravaganzas at the Palace, a seedy Chinatown movie theater. Tent locates the Cockettes' origins in show biz and the avant-garde; one pioneering Cockette, Hibiscus (n George Harris Jr.), came from a family with deep roots in New York theater; another, Link Martin, had been a prot g of poet Helen Adam and the lover of Samuel R. Delany. In the background lurk the East Coast shadows of Andy Warhol's Factory and Charles Ludlam's Theater of the Ridiculous. In their prime, the Cockettes brought a masculinist energy to drag theater (they speckled their beards with glitter) and produced two dozen vaudeville pageants and several films, but drugs, internal rivalry and a New York performance debacle ended the Cockettes' reign in the fall of 1972. With earthy humor, Tent deftly juggles a huge cast of characters while providing a nostalgic trip through San Francisco's gender-bending heyday. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The radical politics, sexual rebellion, and theatrical extravagance of a spontaneously combusting, gender-bending San Francisco troupe, remembered here by one of its founding members. The Cockettes high-stepped themselves into history with a flamboyant dance routine in drag and glitter on New Year's Eve 1970 at the Palace Theater in North Beach, California. They were lavish and excessive, part of an era that commingled the serious and the puckish. The Cockettes had a thing or two to say about gender politics and the sexual orientation of society, but they specialized in high camp; their capricious autonomy and jubilant celebration of life were unfettered by, well, almost anything. Tent taps the collective memories of those from the troupe who remain alive and willing to talk, weaving it all together with impressive thoroughness. Into a period of merely 30 months, she packs in an amazing number of people, drugs, happenings, and relationships. Sharp and still very much her own person, the author will draw on a little astrology to explain someone's behavior, happily defend the players' antics, and just as happily berate the morons and deadbeats who travestied the creative, subversive energy of the time. She carefully describes the Cockettes' free-style theater, its parodies of romance and success, the fun and absurdity of its political incorrectness. She also sensitively explores the nuances of group dynamics and the company's break-up: one faction wanted the routines to get more polished and artful; another, led by the force-of-nature Hibiscus, "wanted nothing more than to live as a family, staging shows simply to amuse each other." Tent wound up in the Detroit General Hospital psychiatricward, but lived to tell this strange tale. She is now an accountant in the Bay Area. Tent's vivid, total-recall memoir gives a touch of permanency to a band that played hard, got dirty, lived fast, and died at two-and-a-half. (16 pp. photos)Agent: Eric Myers/Amy Rennert Agency
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