Ladies at a Gay Girls’ Bar, 1938-1969

Overview

20th-century fem(me)/butch lesbian bars come to life in a solo dance/theatre performance. Maggie Cee explores her years as a teenage gay rights activist, her own identity, and fem history – illuminating the feminine women whose stories are too often forgotten, but whose strength and determination made whose strength and determination paved the way for LGBTQIA+ rights decades before Stonewall.
Called a “major highlight” of the Hartford Fringe Festival by Christopher Arnott, who said: “Ladies at a Gay Girl’s Bar: 1938-1969…sweetly explored the femme/butch dichotomy in lesbian bars over half a century ago. Cee is a graceful, down-to-earth performer who’s passionate about her subject…and tells it through dance, pre-recorded voices, oral histories, fictional characters and well-chosen music.”
Maggie Cee is the founder of The Femme Show, a variety show exploring queer femininity based in Boston seen in Philadelphia at the Rotunda and the Trocadero. Maggie is a co-founder with J. Michael Winward of “Dancing Queerly,” a dance festival for the LGBTQ community. Appearances include True Colors LGBTQI youth conference (Storrs, CT), WOW Cafe Theatre (NYC), OBERON (Cambridge, MA) Cabaret Wotever (London), We Create Festival, (Boston), MondoHomo (Atlanta), the HOT Festival at Dixon Place (NYC), the 2008 and 2012 Femme Conferences, and the Stonewall Inn (NYC). Maggie is the 2011 recipient of the History Project’s Lavender Rhino Award for an emerging LGBT history maker. As a young activist, she was featured in the Advocate magazine’s 2006 “Future Gay Rights Leaders.”

Maggie Cee

Maggie Cee is the founder of The Femme Show, a variety show exploring queer femininity that has been seen in Boston and throughout the northeast since 2007. Her solo show “Ladies at a Gay Girls’ Bar, 1938-1969” debuted at the Providence and Hartford Fringe festivals in 2019 and is being revived and rebooked post-pandemic. Maggie is a co-founder with J. Michael Winward of “Dancing Queerly,” a dance festival for the LGBTQ community. Appearances include True Colors LGBTQI youth conference (Storrs, CT), WOW Cafe Theatre (NYC), OBERON (Cambridge, MA) Cabaret Wotever (London), We Create Festival, (Boston), MondoHomo (Atlanta), the HOT Festival at Dixon Place (NYC), the 2008 and 2012 Femme Conferences, and the Stonewall Inn (NYC). Maggie is the 2011 recipient of the History Project’s Lavender Rhino Award for an emerging LGBT history maker. She was featured in the Advocate magazine’s 2006 “Future Gay Rights Leaders.” Grants and residencies include a MASSiT fellowship from the Dance Complex, Creator-in-Residence at Earthdance, and New England Dance Fund Grant.

Credits

Choreographed, written and performed by Maggie Cee. Mentored by Kali Quinn. Sound mixing and editing by Maggie Cee and Breanne Coulter. Sound execution by Mel Larsen.

Creation of this piece was funded in part by New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund, with generous support from the Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation, and was supported by a Creator-in-Residence stay at Earthdance.

Books cited onstage
Aldrich, Ann. We Walk Alone. Fawcett Publications, 1955.
Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues : a novel. Firebrand Books, 1993.
Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky; Davis, Madeline D. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold. Routledge, 2013.
Nestle, Joan, ed. The Persistent Desire: A femme-butch reader. Alyson Publications, 1992.

Music
“Secret Love” Doris Day, Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster; “Waltz - Que Sera Sera” Chris & Callie Kalogerson Orchestra; “Tuxedo Junction” Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson, Julian Dash, Buddy Feyne, Ballroom Dance Collection; “Keep it Gay” Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, “Perfume and Pink Chiffon” Sonny Lester Orchestra; “Impromptu in Blue,” “Opportunity Walks” Kevin MacLeod