Penny Arcade: The Art of Becoming – Memories from a Long Exile at the Edge of Society. Episode 3 – 1967-1973: Superstar Interrupted

Penny Arcade returns to Joe’s Pub after a three-year Covid induced hiatus, to the kind of rock-and-roll performance theater she pioneered in the 1980’s where she presented characters drawn from oral history, but this time the subject is herself. “Superstar Interrupted,” simply put, is a memoir with music, with the quotable one-liners and the cultural critique we have come to expect from our Penny.

With a life story too big for just one show, this show will be presented over the course of many episodes. Each episode will feature monologues culled from Penny’s developing memoir and songs created by Penny over the past 40 years, sung by Penny with a band led by musical director Chris Rael.

EPISODE 3, the first episode we present, travels from the 1967 East Village of anti-Vietnam protests and legends of the Underground, Taylor Mead, Jack Smith and Harry Smith, to Max’s Kansas City, with Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and Rent A-Superstar, to her early 70’s sojourn in Amsterdam, then the Balearic Islands of Formentera, Ibiza and Mallorca that ranged from full moon parties to Deia with the poet Robert Graves to drinking with sailors in Palma De Mallorca’s Red Light District.

Penny Arcade: The Art of Becoming, a memoir, live show and podcast is being conceptualized and created by Penny Arcade and Steve Zehentner.

This performance is presented as part of the Vanguard Residency Honoring the Memory of Barbara Maier Gustern.

Photo credit: Laura Rubin

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