Bio Archive
 © 2007 Steph Plourde-Simard |
Maggie Cee is an artist, activist, and teacher committed to community, social change, and sequins. She performs regularly with Boston’s Traniwreck and Works in Progress at the Theater Offensive. She recently appeared at the HOT Festival at Dixon Place in New York City, at the Femme2008 Conference, and as a guest artist with Body Heat. In 2006 Maggie was named one of the Advocate’s Future Gay Rights Leaders. Her choreography has been featured throughout the Boston area. Her poetry has been published in Gertrude, The Connecticut Review, and The Emerson Review. Maggie Cee |
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 © 2007 Steph Plourde-Simard |
Havalah Backus Performer. Havalah Grace Backus is more than honored to be a part of The Femme Show again and be surrounded by amazing, strong femmes and their allies. She hails from Chicago, and just recently moved from Durham, North Carolina, where she received her AA from Durham Technical Community College and organized the Sweaty Southern Radical Queer and Trans Convergence among other things. She is currently a BFA Acting student at Emerson College where she is crazy busy taking classes and performing in a variety of things from plays and performance art to sketch comedy and improv. Havalah recently won an award for her performance in The Femme Show. |
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Johnny Blazes Performer. Johnny Blazes is known throughout Boston’s drag and burlesque scenes for hir genre-bending, gender-blending, tongue-in-cheek performances. After training in traditional performance arts, theater, opera and ballet, Johnny started to develop hir own style of performance and art. While attending Oberlin College in Ohio, Johnny founded OCircus! and directed the 95-student group for three years. In June of 2007, Johnny toured with a smaller ensemble-based version of OCircus!, wowing audiences in Detroit, Columbus, Boston, New York, DC and Richmond. Since Johnny’s return to hir home town of Boston in the fall of 2007, Johnny has emerged full force with art that refuses to be labeled. Ze is a regular performer at Truth Serum’s TraniWreck and has choreographed for Boston’s only all-sizes dance troupe, Big Moves. In early summer of 2008, Johnny directed The Madcap Rumpus Society’s circus-theater performance Mischief in the Machine, and the ExtraTerrestrial Circus Experiment’s Quantanime, a touring circus made up of OCircus! alumni and friends. Johnny is currently creating on a one-man show, working with clowning, drag and classical voice. See what ze is up to at www.johnnyblazes.com |
 © 2007 Steph Plourde-Simard |
Ariel Federow Performer. Ariel is a NYC-based choreo-director, performer, and spectacle-maker. She has been seen recently in Big Moves’ Gargantua, Kosher ChiXXX, the JFREJ/Workmen’s Circle Purimshpiel, in the 5768 Sukkos Mob, and she recently turned in her crown as Miss Jew-S-A. She’s a dancer by training (BA, University of Washington) and originally from Seattle, where her work with Ying Zhou and Amy Bollinger was seen in Ladyfest Seattle, Velocity Dance Center’s Under Construction Series, and in 12 Minutes Max at On the Boards. She throws great parties that raise money for even better causes, does trapeze tricks on the subway, and has been known, in the right circumstances, to play with fire. |
  © 2007 Steph Plourde-Simard |
Amanda Johnston (aka Alhena) Performer. Amanda has loved playing dress up since she was a little girl in Elyria, Ohio. But a life dedicated to academics, political activism, and reasonableness didn’t offer much room for it – until she discovered Belly Dance in a post-grad-school frenzy in Austin, Texas. Dancing now for more than ten years, Amanda is currently a performer and board member with Big Moves Boston. Big Moves Marina Wolf Ahmad Performer. Marina got her groove back in 1998, when she started taking hip hop lessons and debuted as a dancer at a fat feminist gathering in San Francisco. She got her femme back (after 11 years in hiding) in 2002, when she began performing burlesque with Heather Macallister’s Fat-Bottom Revue. The founder and artistic director of Big Moves, Marina is fully committed to being the biggest, baddest power-femme fattie to ever storm (off-)Broadway. Big Moves |
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Kate McDonough Filmmaker. Kate recently graduated from Emerson College where she earned a double degree in Film and Political Communications. She currently works as a political organizer and enjoys making campy films in her spare time. Past works include fun little films such as Heterosexual Danger (Emerson College 2004), Tooth Incorporated (Emerson College 2005) and Lusting for Relief (Women in Motion 2006). Kate is super excited to be a part of the Femme Show. Tee Hee was recently featured at the Boston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. |
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Peggy Munson Performer. Award-winning writer and editor, Peggy Munson wrote the Project Queerlit Award winning novel, Origami Striptease, and edited the acclaimed anthology, Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her poetry manuscript, Pathogenesis, was a finalist for the Dorset Prize, the Winnow Press Open Book Award, the Tupelo Press First Book Competition, the Word Works/Washington Prize, and the Carnegie-Mellon Poetry Series. She has also been a finalist for the Astraea grant and the Spoon River Poetry Review’s Editor’s Prize. In addition, Peggy was a winner of the San Francisco Bay Guardian Fiction Contest, and she is the most-published writer in the Best Lesbian Erotica series. Peggy Munson |
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Parker Phillips Performer. Parker is a New York City-based conceptual artist who does everything but nothing in particular. |
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Elizabeth Whitney Performer. According to NYTheatre.com, Whitney is a skilled comedienne with a Kristin Chenoweth! voice and excellent timing, but she’s also thought provoking and insightful. Recent accomplishments include the 2005 & 2006 Curve Magazine Lesbian Theatre Award; the 2004 & 2006 Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival Best Solo Performance Award; and the 2004 Fresh Fruit Festival Best Performance Award. Elizabeth is Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College in Boston. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies and performs work about gender, sexuality, and popular culture. Elizabeth Whitney |
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Lea Robinson Performer. As a student-athlete, Robinson enjoyed a successful career as a four-year letter winner at Western Kentucky University, playing in the 1991-1992 NCAA Final Four as a National Championship runner-up. Robinson’s coaching experience includes Newbury College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, UW-Milwaukee, Morehead State University, Southern Illinois University, and Murray State University. She currently serves on panels and encourages dialogue surrounding the intersectionality of racism and homophobia in sports through work with It Takes a Team! and The National Center for Lesbian Rights. Lea Robinson |
  © 2007 Steph Plourde-Simard |
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Amy Rain Performer / Producer. Amy received her BFA in Printmaking from Maine College of Art and resides in Portland, ME. She spends her days working as a graphic de- signer and her evenings as a kitty-loving artist, dancer, educator, and plant enthusiast. She has taught numerous workshops on art and activism to both youth and adults. Most recently Amy was the director of USM’s The Vagina Monologues, part of the 2008 Global V-Day Campaign. She is also known in Portland for her ‘zinester antics and creation of Why Is Cunt A Dirty Word?! ‘Zine (WICAD Word). Working from autobiographical narrative, her art investigates feminist topics such as: gender, sexuality, spirituality and relationships. WICAD word |
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Alicia Greene Performer. Alicia is a black queer educator, activist and performer. She is an alumni of Kansas State University, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-NYC and the Improv Asylum Training Center in Boston, MA. She would like to thank her family and her partner, Avada for their love and support! |
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Mallory Hanora Performer. Mallory Hanora is a community organizer, abortion care provider, artist, and writer. She was recently published in the anthology Queer and Catholic. Mallory has performed in Boston at the Works in Progress series, Boston University, Emerson College, the Boston Common, Jacques Cabaret, at parties and special events, and with the Reflect and Strengthen Street Theatre troupe. She graduated from the Emerson College Honors Program with a degree in Writing and experience in the performing arts. Mallory Hanora |
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Rachel Kahn Performer. A recent transplant to Boston by way of New York City, Rachel is a freelance writer, poet, and performer but spends the vast majority of her time pretending to be a therapist. Her work has been heard at a variety of venues, including the Apocalypse Lounge, the Ear Inn Poetry Series, and The New York Writers’ Coalition ‘Writing Aloud’ series. Rachel’s first novel came out this year under an assumed identity. |
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Sassafras Lowrey Performer/Blogger. Sassafras is a genderqueer high femme, militant storyteller, author, artist, performer, and activist. Ze believes that everyone has a story to tell, and that the telling of those stories is essential to creating social change. An accomplished storyteller, ze was an original member of “The Language of Paradox” founded and directed by Kate Bornstein and was honored as one of Portland’s top emerging writers by In Other Words feminist books and resources in 2004. Hir first book GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life Lived Queerly is scheduled for release Summer 2008 from the queer publisher Homofactus Press. Additionally, Sassafras is the editor of the Kicked Out anthology also from Homofactus Press which is bringing together the voices of current and former LGBTQ youth from around the world who were forced to leave home as a result of their sexuality and/or gender identity. Sassafras lives in New York City with hir partner, two puddle-shaped cats, and a princess dog. |
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Ruckus Muckus Performer. Ruckus Muckus is a costumer, stage and street performer. She makes dance, movement, character, living statue, and circus work. Most recently she has performed with Emperor Norton’s, Ten31, and Silver Swimmers. Silver Swimmers / Ruckus Muckus |
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AB Commendatore Web Designer/Production Manager. AB is a freelance Web Designer & Stage Manager. She’s currently nominated for a DASH Award in Stage Management. AB has worked with many companies around Boston including Boston Theatre Works (BTW), WERS 88.9, CentaStage, The Longwood Players (TLP), The Boston Children’s Choir, The Súgán Theatre, Handel & Hayden Society and Emerson Stage. Recent credits: BTW’s Elliot Norton Winner Angels in America, IRNE Nominee The Importance of Being Earnest (TLP) & last summer’s 4:48 Psychosis (FPTC). Upcoming Productions include: The Heidi Chronicles (TLP) in November. AB holds a BFA in Production/Stage Management from Emerson College. AB Commendatore |
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Lyndon Cudlitz Vendor. Maker of magnets, patches, and light switch plates that are fun, queer, feminist, sex-positive and progressive. Lyndon’s work has been seen at the Vagina Monologues, Translating Identity Conference (Burlington) , Southern Maine Pride, Reproductive Rights Conference, and an Earth Day fair. |
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Katie Diamond Logo Designer/Vendor. Radical Feminist Comic Artist. She strongly believes in the direct cross-over of art and politic, and uses this dogma in her every-day art practice. She’s done many illustrations and cartoons about gender, sexuality, and sex education. She’s also designed many pamphlets, flyers, and posters for various local organizations. Katie will be offering comic books and hand-printed t-shirts. Katie Diamond |
