If you have any awareness of the New York underground, you have probably encountered the name Penny Arcade. Her resume is so diverse, that until she finishes her autobiography, it will be hard to comprehend the breadth of her activities. Those activities include writing, performance art, acting, teaching, production and even a run for political office. She ran away from home at age 14 and landed in reform school. When they discharged her at age 16, she moved to New York. After an LSD trip, she changed her name to Penny Arcade and became a regular at the city’s gay bars. She was recruited (while still a teen) to be an Andy Warhol superstar (she appears in Women In Revolt); she appeared in a Larry Rivers film, and she starred in a Jackie Curtis play (all of this before turning 20). In 1971 she left New York to tour with The Playhouse of the Ridiculous in Amsterdam, which was followed by ten years in Europe.

When she returned to New York in 1981, she worked with Jack Smith, John Vaccaro, Charles Ludlam and The Angels of Light. She did a long running two-person show with Quentin Crisp. Her solo performance works have titles like “BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE!” and “Longing Lasts Longer.”

My go-to “Meet Penny Arcade” video on YouTube is called Bad Reputation. It’s a talk that she gave in Australia about: “gentrification – of neighborhoods, cities and ideas.” In the video she is charming and funny and wise. It serves as a good introduction to her world view and whets the appetite to experience more of her oeuvre (many of her performances are on YouTube and Vimeo).

In the late ’80s she invented a character named Margo Howard-Howard, a drag queen with a scandalous past, based on East Village characters she knew. When she retired the character, there was an obituary in The Village Voice.

 

Her website (pennyarcade.tv) has a massive CV. The thing that it best demonstrates is what a solid work ethic Ms. Arcade has. Her latest ongoing project (commenced in 1999) requires both that and the patience of a saint, as she tracks down the oddballs of The East Village who are vanishing as the city changes. Stemming the Tide of Cultural Amnesia, The Lower Eastside Biography Project, is a series of small documentaries of people who might not have been otherwise recorded. This started out as a Public Access television program. It now includes a community-media training program to teach young filmmakers to produce and post-produce documentaries. The list of names they have already recorded includes Taylor Mead, Holly Woodlawn, Tuli Kupferberg, Jayne County and Jonas Mekas. Since its inception, the Lower East Side Biography Project has mentored over 50 individuals, completed 46 28-minute biographies and filmed 70 oral history interviews, along with dozens of memorials and live events. The project’s archive holds over 1300 entries. If anybody reading this is looking for a good thesis topic, Penny Arcade is due for greater recognition.