Season 4 · Episode 10
Actress, performance artist and singer · Club 57 · Bongwater, Pulsallama
Released 4 Sep 2024 · 1:07:52 as a podcast
Every name, club, book, song, night and look from the interview - 272 references and 610 mentions in this episode. Fenton is away, so it's James and Randy in the chairs. From basement plays and Helen Keller in community theatre in Charleston, West Virginia, and London punk watched from a safe distance on her year abroad to New York, New Wave Vaudeville at Irving Plaza and a year managing Club 57 under the Polish church on St. Mark's Place - Stanley Strychacki's social club, with Tom Scully's Monster Movie Club, Ladies Auxiliary debutante balls and misfits' proms, and Klaus Nomi, who, as Ann tells it, jumped on a snow mound and sang opera under a street light - then the Pyramid and Danceteria, Pulsallama, Bongwater and Vulcan Death Grip, The Hunger with Bowie, Desperately Seeking Susan, Making Mr. Right in its Keith Haring shoes, Anything But Love, Ghost Cat's West Virginia monsters and her own suRURALism. Wow!
Short swept-back silver-white hair, small drop earrings and an oatmeal linen shawl with faint woven stripes, wrapped round her shoulders
A creased royal-blue cloth backdrop, with a woven tan chair back behind her
Gowns, corsages and wrestling leotards
Club 57's debutante ball and prom for misfits, plus lady wrestling, with honorary guys as go-go dancers
Ann first visited alone at 18 and later moved there; she compares 70s New York to Mean Streets and Midnight Cowboy and calls it the only place to go
The club in the Polish National Church's basement at 57 St. Mark's Place, named by Stanley Strychacki. Ann managed it for about a year: theme nights, films, comedy and performers from SVA. She says there was no censorship there and the neighbours complained about the noise
FashionAtomic-age retro and theme-night dressing (see Mood)
Heard as “Club 57 / Club Fifty Seven / Club fifty seven / Club fifty-seven”
Ann's home state, which she still defends and keeps going back to; she now records with West Virginia musicians
Heard as “West Virginia / West Virginian”
Tom Scully's vaudeville show with punk acts at Irving Plaza in late 1978; Ann directed and ran around for it, and it's where much of the Club 57 crowd converged. Klaus Nomi got in after Ann vouched for him
Heard as “Audeville / Vaudeville / vaudeville”
Heard as Stanley Sterki: booked Irving Plaza with other Polish organisers and already ran Club 57 at 57 St. Mark's Place, a social club the church's bishop asked him to create; he named it Club 57 and later wrote a book about its beginnings
Heard as “Stanley”
Ann's junior year abroad, when she watched punk take off; The Hunger's disco scene was shot there
Ann's one lead role, as the straight one. James rewatched it and raves about its 80s fashions; Ann recently showed it at the Metrograph and says a new book on Susan Seidelman has a chapter on it
FashionKeith Haring shoes and little jackets (see Mood)
Heard as “Making Mr. Right / Making Mr. Wright / Mr. Ride / making Mr. Wright”
Where Ann got her first punk haircut, later lived, and where Club 57 was
Where James saw the flippers act; Ann thought it too CHiPs and Charlie's Angels for her, then started going back and forth in the Pyramid years. Home of the warehouse raves in Rave Mom
Heard as “LA / Los Angeles”
Ann watched London punk take off in her year abroad, from a safe distance; she says punks got beaten up and the scene wasn't welcoming to Americans. Back in New York she got a punk haircut, and the vaudeville show had punk acts
FashionFrom pointy 50s heels and ripped fishnets to bondage pants and coloured hair (see Mood)
Heard as “Punk / Punks / punk”
Too crowded to get into on Ann's first college trip; later a regular haunt where Bob Holman introduced her to Tom Scully
Heard as “CB's / CBGB / CBGB's”
James relays Richard Boch's view that the Mudd Club had more gravitas than Club 57's kids putting on shows; Ann jokes back about the Mudd Club crowd, then says the rivalry is overblown since people performed at both
Heard as “Mud Club”
Ann played the young woman picked up at a nightclub by the vampire couple in the opening scene. She got the part, lost it over Equity rules and was called back days before; she made T-shirts from her call sheet. Ann says she later heard from the DP that the actress first cast instead couldn't act
FashionCall-sheet T-shirts (see Mood)
Heard as “Hunger / hunger”
James first guesses the flippers act was there; Ann did Kestutis Nakas's Titus Andronicus there and calls it a natural next step after Club 57. She says John Sex and Wendy Wild performed there a lot
FashionDeconstructed drag
Heard as “Pyramid / pyramid”
Ann first saw him in An American Family on PBS and felt he was a kindred spirit; she got to know him and Kristian Hoffman through the New Wave Vaudeville show
Heard as “Lance”
Heard as Klaus Naomi, Klaus Sperber: Ann and Peter walked up to him across the bar at Max's; walking back to the East Village he jumped on a snow mound and sang opera under a street light, and Ann vouched for him for the vaudeville show
FashionMake-up and dyed tri-pointed hair (see Mood)
Heard as “Klaus”
Club 57's debutante ball and prom for misfits, plus lady wrestling, with honorary guys as go-go dancers
FashionGowns, corsages and wrestling leotards
Heard as “debutante / go-go dancers / prom”
Ladies Auxiliary nights Ann lists: lady wrestling, a debutante ball and a misfits' prom for those who skipped their own
FashionDebutante gowns and prom dresses (see Mood)
Heard as “debutante / lady wrestling / prom”
Pyramid co-founder with Bobby Bradley, as Ann sets James straight; a co-author of the new Pyramid book
FashionPyramid drag
Heard as “Brian / Brian Butterich / Brian Butterick / Butterick”
Host; remembers seeing Ann tap-dance in goggles, a snorkel and flippers in LA, rewatched Making Mr. Right the night before, and says his first party was for Vulcan Death Grip at the Cat Club. Links to his own Night Fever episode
Heard as “James / James St. James / James, St. James / Tam St. James”
Fenton and Randy's company; Ann jokes about a WOW premiere of hipster hoarders
Heard as “World of One / World of Wonder / world of wonder”
The guest: actress, performance artist and singer-songwriter from Charleston, West Virginia, who managed Club 57 and fronted Bongwater, Pulsallama and Vulcan Death Grip; star of The Hunger, Desperately Seeking Susan, Making Mr. Right and Anything But Love. Links to her Night Fever episode
FashionSilver hair and an oatmeal linen shawl on camera; her stories' looks are under Mood
Heard as “Ann / Magna”
Where Ann went to college and directed The Madman and the Nun; home of Devo's Akron
Ann's window onto the world in West Virginia: silent films, War and Peace and An American Family
Ann's apartment in 1979, at $150 a month; she always needed someone to walk her home, and James jokes you needed a tank
Heard as “Avenue A / Avenue N”
Ann's Anything But Love co-star; she says they reconnected before he passed, and that he was pushing hard to get the show streaming
Heard as “Richard Lewis / so Richard / tag Richard”
Co-host; asks Ann whether she's still close to friends from those years and says he can't wait for her memoir. Fenton Bailey is not in this episode
Heard as “Randy / Randy Barbado”
In James's intro; he says it and Making Mr. Right bookend the 80s, fashion-wise
FashionDowntown thrift style
Heard as “Desperately Seeking / Desperately see / desperately seeking / desperately sticking”
Ann's ABC sitcom with Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis; she played a kooky magazine editor and says the rehearsals were the funniest part. Richard Lewis wanted it streaming
FashionKooky fashion editor (see Mood)
Heard as “Anything Beloved / Anything But Love / anything but love”
What Ann was really interested in; she says New York was the closest you could get to a European sensibility
Heard as “Europe / European”
Ann's father sat her down to watch a stern special on San Francisco hippies; she says it had the opposite effect
FashionPeace signs (see Mood)
Heard as “hippie / hippies”
Ann and Peter went there all the time; she met Klaus Nomi across its bar
Heard as “MAX's / Max's”
Heard as Keith Herring: one of the SVA crowd who came to Club 57 while Ann ran it; she also mentions him with PS122. James spots Keith Haring shoes on Ann in Making Mr. Right
FashionKeith Haring shoes in Making Mr. Right (see Mood)
Heard as “Keith”
Ann's analog collages of each month's programme, shown at MoMA and on her website
FashionCut-and-paste collage
Heard as “calendars / collages / collaging”
Heard as Limbo Realms: on Ann's list; James saw Charles Busch's Theodora and John Sex there in his first week in New York
Heard as “Limbo”
In Long Island City; Ann says she was its first performance curator and brought the downtown crowd into the art world
Heard as “P S One / PS1”
Club 57's love of 50s and 60s optimism, which Ann says Making Mr. Right picked up too
FashionAtomic-age pastels
Heard as “atomic age / retro”
Ann's song name-dropping West Virginia monsters such as Mothman and the Flatwoods monster, with Charlie McCoy; James made it his song of October
Heard as “Ghost Cat / Ghost cat / ghost cat”
Heavy metal parody band Ann made up with Rudi Protrudi; James's first party was for them. Ann says they've recorded new songs and never released a record
FashionHeavy-metal parody
James's vivid memory of Ann's act in LA, the audience rolling on the floor; Ann doesn't remember it but says it might have happened
FashionGoggles, snorkel and flippers
Heard as “flippers / snorkel”
Where Ann was born and raised; she remembers a strong school system, a symphony and theatre companies, and a town with many PhDs thanks to the Union Carbide plant
Heard as “Charleston”
Ann's high-school obsession from PBS's War and Peace; she had tickets to see him in Equus on her first trip to New York
BBC series on PBS that made Ann obsessed with Anthony Hopkins
Heard as “War and Peace”
Heard as Christian Hoffman: Lance Loud's friend from Santa Barbara, seen with him in An American Family; Ann met him through the vaudeville show
Heard as “Christian”
One of the people Ann was reading about in West Virginia; in The Hunger, she played the nightclub pick-up who goes home with his and Catherine Deneuve's vampire couple
Heard as “Bowie”
Ann grew up watching the protests on TV; she says counterculture felt normal and correct to her
Heard as “Vietnam”
Seen in the hippie TV special Ann's father made her watch; her Burning Man friends came from there
Ann's boyfriend in her early New York days, a night crawler who took her to Max's and CBGB all the time and walked her up to Klaus Nomi
Heard as “Peter”
Heard as Castudis Nakas: Ann met him at CBGB or Max's when he was a young NYU theatre student, later acted in his Titus Andronicus at the Pyramid, and is still close to him. A co-author of the new Pyramid book and, she says, a big help in starting the club
Heard as “Castudis / Castudis Nakas / Costudas Nakas”
The new Pyramid book by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin and Kestutis Nakas; James read an excerpt where Ann describes moving on from Club 57
Heard as “Pyramid Club book / pyramid book”
Wanted to stage a vaudeville show with punk acts, and Ann asked to direct it. Stanley asked him to manage Club 57; he preferred programming films (a juvenile-delinquent series, Jayne Mansfield and Russ Meyer movies, then the Monster Movie Club), so he suggested Ann
Heard as “Tom Scully / Tom started”
The church above Club 57; Ann says its bishop gave Stanley the job of starting a social club to bring in money
Heard as “Polish National Church / for the church”
On James's list of Club 57 names; he also saw him at the Limbo Lounge in his first week in New York, and Ann says he and Wendy Wild performed a lot at the Pyramid
FashionPompadour showman glam
Heard as “John Sex / John Sexton”
Held the Club 57 retrospective; PS1 is now part of it
Heard as “MoMA / Museum of Modern Art”
Ann says AIDS hit the close, supportive community they had built especially hard
Heard as “AIDS”
Named by Ann as Alan Mace and by James as Dimension, among the people around the Pyramid's start
Heard as “Alan / Alan Mace / Of dimension”
Heard as Dansotyria: James recalls Ann performing there with Joey; Ann says it was very important and ran alongside the Pyramid
Heard as “Danseteria / Dansotyria”
Ann met him while he cast Once Upon a Time in America; she says he spoke no English and she didn't get the part
Heard as “Sergio Leona / Sergio Leone / Sergio Leoni”
Heard as Bonnie Lutz: co-costume designer of Making Mr. Right with Rudy Dillon, married to David Byrne, as Ann says; Ann isn't sure whether the Keith Haring shoes were her idea or Adelle's
FashionCostume designer (see Mood)
Heard as “Bonnie / Bonnie Lutz”
Directed Making Mr. Right and Desperately Seeking Susan; she did a Q&A at Ann's Metrograph screening, and Ann says Susan's son now calls Making Mr. Right his favourite of her films. Links to her Night Fever episode
FashionDesperately Seeking Susan downtown style
Heard as “Seidelman / Susan's movie”
Lead of Anything But Love; Ann tagged her in an old cast photo on Instagram and mentions emails with her about getting the show streaming
Heard as “Jamie / Jamie Lee Curtis”
Warehouse raves in downtown LA that a friend took Ann to; she learned to love the music
FashionRave wear
Heard as “raves”
New friends from San Francisco, Bongwater fans, talked Ann into going; she rode there in an RV from Reno
FashionBurning Man costume
Band Ann co-founded, named in her intro; her Burning Man friends were big fans
Heard as “Balmwater / Bongwater”
Ann's first play, written as a child for basement shows; she still has its stuffed-animal star and the script
Heard as “Christmas in a Mouse Hole / Christmas in a mouse hole”
Heard as Dennison: where Ann majored in theatre and film; she went to London with a Denison theatre teacher
Heard as “Dennison”
Ann played her in The Miracle Worker in community theatre and calls it a great part for a teenage girl with lots of energy
Ann played Helen Keller in community theatre to rave reviews, she says, to a packed 600-seat house
Heard as “Miracle Worker”
How London punk began as Ann watched: kids in discarded short-heeled, long-toed 50s shoes and ripped fishnets
FashionDiscarded heels and torn tights
Heard as “fishnets / high heels”
As the months went by it got more extreme, Ann says
FashionBondage trousers and dyed hair
Heard as “bondage pants / colored hair”
Ann's high-school friend and the first of their West Virginia crowd to move to New York; he brought back After Dark magazine, and Ann brought people she met through him into the vaudeville show
Heard as “Tim Dunlavey / Timothy Dunlavey”
Ann's first punk haircut from Revenge, for about a dollar; her boyfriend later called it the defrocked nun and Ann admits it wasn't flattering
FashionSevere home-hacked crop
Heard as “defrocked nun / punk rock haircut”
Ann had tickets to see Anthony Hopkins in it on her first trip to New York
Ann thinks she was in the play seen in An American Family; also in Women in Revolt, the film Ann found in the Janus catalogue
FashionWarhol superstar glamour
Wrote Vain Victory, as Ann recalls; one of the stars of Women in Revolt
FashionGlitter drag
Documentary in which Ann tells the snow-mound story
Heard as “Know Me song / Nomi song”
The snow-mound aria under a street light on the walk to the East Village
FashionStreet-lit snow
Heard as “snow mound”
Klaus Nomi already looked very new wave; Ann says the new wave loved retro 50s and 60s
Heard as “new wave”
How Klaus looked the night Ann met him: make-up, very new wave, dyed hair in three points
FashionTri-pointed hair and make-up
Heard as “tri-pointed / wearing makeup”
Kestutis Nakas was a theatre student there and Naomi Regelson worked at its radio station
Heard as “NYU”
The wondrous New York magazine Tim Dunlavey brought back to West Virginia; Ann's community theatre director had it too
FashionGlossy showbiz glamour
Its Charleston plant brought many PhDs to town; Ann says it and DuPont polluted the valley
Heard as “Union Carbide / wind carbide”
Where a West Virginia friend of Ann's, about to turn 80, wants to go again for her birthday
Heard as “Havana”
Part of what made Ann want to go to New York
Once Ann had their record in West Virginia, she says there was no going back
FashionGlam drag rock
Where the New Wave Vaudeville show ran; Stanley Strychacki and other Polish organisers did the bookings
On James's Club 57 list; often at the Pyramid with John Sex, Ann says
Heard as “Wendy Wild / Wendy Wilde”
Many of Club 57's people came from SVA, Ann says
Heard as “SVA / school of visual art”
Named by James after John Kelly and echoed by Ann (heard as Animal Act / Animal Axe); no act of that name found online, so kept as heard
Heard as “Animal Act / Animal Axe”
Ann's mother was in it; the Ladies Auxiliary copied it
Heard as “junior league”
MoMA's retrospective on Club 57, which showed Ann's collage calendars; she's glad a third party looked at it with academic rigour
Heard as “doing this show / retrospective about”
James sees her performing on the Club 57 list; she starred in Vortex, the film that led Ann to The Hunger
FashionNo-wave black
Heard as Mark Shaman: made A Sound of Muzak at Club 57 with Scott Wittman, later Hairspray; Ann says they found the club through Marjorie Gross
Heard as “Mark Scott / Mark Shaman”
Marc Shaiman's partner, who told Ann how Marjorie Gross sent them to Club 57
Heard as “Scott Whitman / Scott Woodman”
The one stand-up Ann liked when scouting uptown comedy clubs for a Club 57 comedy night; they became friends, and she told Marc and Scott about the club
Heard as “Marge Gross / Marjorie Gross”
Ann's alternative comedy show downtown, for which she recruited Marjorie Gross
Heard as “comedy night / comedy show”
James recalls Ann performing with him at Danceteria, and says he has talked about her on the show
FashionCabaret glamour
Heard as “Joey”
James mentions it; Ann performed there
Heard as “the kitchen and / the kitchen was”
Heard as Catherine Dunlow: James asks about the scene with her and Bowie in The Hunger; Ann explains that the other actor went off with Deneuve's character and she went with Bowie's
FashionVampire chic
Heard as “Catherine Dunlow / wasn't with Catherine”
T-shirts made from Ann's call sheet with the film's production logo
FashionPrinted crew T-shirts
Heard as “call sheet”
Co-star of Vortex who became Ann's friend and introduced her to casting director Mary Goldberg
Heard as “James Russo / Jimmy Russo”
Uptown casting director who, through James Russo, got Ann a meeting with Sergio Leone
Director of The Hunger; cast Ann because her character spoke and was American
Heard as “Tony Scott / Tony, you can't”
James wonders why there's been no museum retrospective of these outfits
Fashion80s retro-50s-60s styling
Heard as “fashions are so 80s / outfits”
Ann says he's an extra in Making Mr. Right
Heard as Rudy Dylan: the other costume designer of Making Mr. Right
FashionCostume designer (see Mood)
Heard as “Dylan, right / Rudy Dylan”
Ann's Anything But Love character, the eccentric, fashionable editor she was thrilled to play
FashionKooky editor chic
Heard as “Catherine Hughes / fashionable one”
James calls her crazy and fun in Making Mr. Right; Ann remembers her telling stories about Jerry Lewis
Juilliard-trained actor who played Ann's assistant on Anything But Love; she says they became very close
Heard as “Richard Frank / Rick Frank”
Ann posted an old Anything But Love photo there
Ann says Richard Lewis was only there, not on Instagram
Heard as “Twitter / on X”
Ann's one-woman show about LA raves and Burning Man
Heard as Sprongle: the very odd band Ann got into through the raves
Heard as “Sprongle”
Heard as surrealism: Ann's own art movement mixing the surreal and the rural; Ghost Cat is part of it. James loves the name
FashionFabric art
Heard as “Rural is / surrealism”
In James's intro
Heard as Pulsa Llama: the all-girl band James describes as 13 girls fighting over a cowbell
Heard as “Pulsa Llama”
Polish expressionist play Ann directed in her last semester
Heard as “Madman and the Nun”
Where Ann did her last college semester on a work-study programme; she found uptown theatre too square
Heard as “Ensemble Studio”
Friend who went with Ann to see the Damned in a pub in Bristol
Heard as “Alexa”
Ann saw her at Kilburn High Road station during her London year
FashionCat-ear punk hair
Where Ann saw Sue Catwoman (heard as Kilburn High Station)
Heard as “Kilburn”
The college friend Ann drove to New York with over a Thanksgiving weekend, when CBGB was too crowded to get in
Heard as “friend Carol”
Where Ann went on her first college trip to New York
Store where Ann got a one-dollar punk haircut on her first college trip; no record found online
FashionDefrocked-nun haircut (see Mood)
Heard as “called Revenge”
Made the War and Peace series
Where Ann stayed alone on her first trip to New York, across from Lincoln Center; she tells of a frightening first night there
The Empire Hotel is right across from it
How New York felt when Ann arrived
Also how New York felt
Ann watched his Orphans of the Storm when PBS showed silent films
Heard as “Griffith”
Silent film Ann saw on PBS
Ann's name for her well-read crowd back in West Virginia
FashionGlam meets Appalachia
Heard as “Glamrock Hillbilly”
Visited Lance and Kristian at the Chelsea Hotel in An American Family, and went with them to a play Ann thinks was Vain Victory
Heard as “Pat Laud”
Where Lance Loud and Kristian Hoffman stayed in An American Family
Heard as “Chelsea Hotel”
Where Lance and Kristian came from
Jackie Curtis play that Ann thinks was the one seen in An American Family
FashionGlitter drag theatre
Heard as “Vain victory”
Star of The Out of Towners, one of Ann's first impressions of New York
One of Ann's first impressions of New York: constant muggings
Heard as “Out of Towners”
James adds her name to The Out of Towners
The only soap Ann watched; James is rewatching it, a thousand episodes in
FashionGothic
Played Quentin Collins in Dark Shadows; Ann points out he's from West Virginia and says she met him and he's a great guy
Ann's phone rings mid-interview - the call is from Beverly Hills
Named with Bowie as the kind of artist Ann was reading about instead of watching soaps
FashionMime and glam theatricality
Heard as “Lindsey Kemp”
Ann remembers the original Broadway cast performing it on the Today Show
Heard as “West Side Story”
Ann jokes that Disney turned kids on to psychedelia whether they knew it or not
Ann flashing peace signs at hippies from the family car
FashionHippie colours
Heard as “peace signs”
The anti-war priests Ann read about in Time magazine as a kid; part of what made protest and counterculture feel normal to her
Heard as “Berrigan”
Ann's mother had two of its catalogues; that's where Ann found Women in Revolt
Heard as “Janice film”
The Janus catalogue page that showed Ann drag for the first time
FashionWarhol superstar drag
Heard as “men in drag”
Starred in Women in Revolt, the first film Ann saw with men in drag, in a Janus catalogue
FashionWarhol superstar glamour
In the Janus catalogue: the first time Ann saw men in drag
FashionWarhol superstar drag (see Mood)
Heard as Akira Curaçao: in the Janus catalogue that opened up film for Ann before college
Heard as “Akira Curaçao”
Directed The Nomi Song; Ann says the film merged her first meeting with Klaus and the snow-mound night into one
Heard as “Andy Horn”
Kestutis Nakas's production at the Pyramid, with Ann in the cast
Heard as “Titus Andronicus”
Ran the St. Mark's Poetry Project, as Ann says, and introduced her to Tom Scully at CBGB
Tony Pastor's vaudeville house, which Ann knew from theatre history, had been just down the street from CBGB
Heard as “Tony Pastor”
Heard only as Tom Scully's girlfriend Susan; the sources name Susan Hannaford as co-producer of the vaudeville show and co-host of the Monster Movie Club
Heard as “girlfriend Susan”
Ann was in it in third grade with the local light opera guild
Heard as “music man”
Did the musicals in Charleston, including Ann's Music Man
Heard as “light opera guild”
Part of Ann's West Virginia childhood
Ann loved watching West Virginia's snake handlers and Bible thumpers as pure theatre and worked them into her act
Heard as “snake”
Named by Ann with Union Carbide
Everyone loved her, Ann says
Heard as “Patty Smith”
On Ann's list of what everybody loved
FashionLeather jackets and ripped jeans
On the same list
Heard as “on and on, television”
Stanley Strychacki's book on the club's beginnings (Ann calls it My Life as Art)
Heard as “Life as Art”
Went to Club 57 as a teenager with his band the Blessed, as Ann recounts from Stanley's book
An NYU student working at the college radio station who was booking bands at Club 57 before the vaudeville crowd arrived, as Ann recalls; spelling as heard
Howie Pyro's teenage band, which played Club 57 early on
Her movies were part of Tom Scully's film programme at Club 57
FashionHollywood bombshell glamour
Heard as “Jane Mansfield”
Also in Tom Scully's Club 57 film programme
Ann was blown away by them early on and might have joined if the vaudeville show hadn't happened
Heard as “Squat Theat”
Came to Club 57 with Keith Haring while Ann was managing it
FashionCustomised, cartoon-bright style
Heard as “Scharf”
Heard as Peter Quailoff, on James's list; Wikipedia's Club 57 page lists Peter Kwaloff (Sun PK) among its performers
Heard as “Peter Quailoff”
James says she performed at Club 57; Ann thinks that was after she left
Performance artist on James's Club 57 list
Ann mentions her girlfriend Sharon among the theatre people who rented Club 57
Heard as “Cookie”
Heard as Sharon Ness: Cookie Mueller's girlfriend, who Ann says was in a Tooth of Crime production at Club 57
Heard as “Sharon Ness”
Wrote The Tooth of Crime, staged at Club 57
Heard as John Hayes: Ann names him with Ethyl Eichelberger as doing performances at Club 57, where he also designed flyers
Heard as “John Hayes”
Sam Shepard play staged at Club 57 by a renting theatre troupe, with Sharon Niesp
Heard as “Tooth of Crime”
Play produced at Club 57 early on
Ann's mostly-women Club 57 group, modelled on her mother's Junior League, with honorary guys as go-go dancers
FashionLadies Auxiliary looks (see Mood)
Heard as “Ladies Auxiliary”
Heard as Tish and Snookie: their all-girl Hen Party inspired Ann to start the Ladies Auxiliary
FashionPunk hair colour
Heard as “Tish”
Tish & Snooky's all-girl party that inspired the Ladies Auxiliary, as Ann tells it
MoMA's book on the club; James and Randy have their copies
Heard as “Club 57 Film, Performance”
James sees an art show of hers on the Club 57 list; Ann thinks most shows came after her time
Heard as “Nan Golden”
On James's list of Club 57 art shows
On James's list of Club 57 art shows
Heard as Alexis Delago: named by James with A Sound of Muzak on the Club 57 list
FashionDrag
Heard as “Alexis Delago”
Heard as the Sound of Music: Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's Club 57 parody, which James finds on the list with Alexis Del Lago; Ann answers by naming Marc and Scott
FashionVon Trapp and nun costumes
Heard as “sound of music”
Uptown comedy club Ann scouted alone; she found it square and mostly male
Ann says people from the Mudd Club world or the New Cinema wondered why MoMA would do a show about Club 57
Heard as “new cinema”
Heard as Richard Block: James relays his take on a Mudd Club versus Club 57 rivalry from his own episode
Heard as “Richard Block”
The Pyramid's address, heard as Avenue N, where the Pyramid book launch takes place; the space has been renovated
Heard as “101 Avenue N”
Ann is performing at the launch of the new Pyramid book at 101 Avenue A, and will see old friends there
Heard as “book launch”
The Pyramid's publicist, as Ann says, and a co-author of the new Pyramid book
On Ann's list of performance clubs running alongside the Pyramid and Danceteria
Heard as “8 BC”
Heard as King Touch Wawaha: East Village club on Ann's list
Heard as “King Touch, Wawaha”
Heard as Wow, the lesbian collection: the women's theatre space on Ann's list of 80s downtown venues
Heard as “Wow, the lesbian”
Heard as Charles Bush: James saw his Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium at the Limbo Lounge in his first week in New York
FashionDrag leading lady
Heard as “Charles Bush”
Charles Busch play James saw at the Limbo Lounge in his first week in New York
FashionDrag costume epic
Heard as “Theodora”
Heard as Rudy Pertrudi: the Fuzztones man with whom Ann concocted Vulcan Death Grip
FashionHeavy-metal parody
Heard as “Rudy Pertrudi”
Where James threw his first party, for Vulcan Death Grip; he remembers only about ten people coming
Ann says it was going on before Club 57, part of downtown's rich theatre history
Heard as “La Mama”
Ann says he did many of his first shows at PS122 and got a lot of attention
Ann performed there; she mentions Keith Haring and says Tim Miller did many of his first shows there
Where PS1 is
Directors of Vortex, the film that, as Ann tells it, led to her Hunger role
Heard as “Beth and Scott B”
Beth B and Scott B film with Lydia Lunch and James Russo; it led Ann to The Hunger
FashionNo-wave noir
Heard as Equiday: as Ann tells it, it insisted on a British actor, so she was briefly out of The Hunger
Heard as “Equiday”
The London club where, as Ann tells it, The Hunger's disco scene was shot
FashionGoth club look
Heard as “heaven in London”
Ann's co-star in Making Mr. Right; James calls him adorable in it
Heard as “Malkovich”
Shoes painted with Keith Haring figures that Ann recently showed online
FashionHaring line-figure shoes
Heard as “pair of shoes”
James can't get over Ann's little jackets in Making Mr. Right; every queen needs to see it, he says
FashionCropped 80s jackets
Heard as “little jackets”
Ann recently showed a 35mm print of Making Mr. Right there, with a Q&A by Susan Seidelman
Heard as “MetroGraph”
Probably the book by Chicago academics on Seidelman's films that Ann just received, with a chapter on Making Mr. Right, she says
Heard as “book in the mail”
Academics in Chicago wrote the book on Susan Seidelman's films that Ann just received
Club 57 night where they built a spaceship and all landed on the moon
FashionSpace-age costumes (see Mood)
Heard as “salute to NASA”
A homemade spaceship so they could all land on the moon
FashionSpace-age silver
Heard as “spaceship”
Ann says she envied her kookier part in Making Mr. Right
Heard as “Laurie Medcalf”
Subject of Polly Bergen's stories on set, as Ann recalls
Ann says Anything But Love would have run as long if they'd filmed the rehearsals
Heard as “curb your enthusiasm”
Where Ann met her new friends and got in an RV to Burning Man
The lesser-known but more glamorous West Virginia monster in Ghost Cat, as Ann puts it
FashionSpade-hooded cryptid
Heard as “Flatwood”
Charlie McCoy is a Nashville legend
Another of Charlie McCoy's collaborators
Heard as Trace Beagle: James says he told the show a funny story about Ann scaring Andy Warhol at a Tony Shafrazi event, Warhol taking her for a crazed hippie. Links to his Night Fever episode
Heard as “Trace Beagle”
The subject of Trey Speegle's story about Ann, as James retells it
Heard as “Warhol”
The Ann-and-Warhol story happened at a Tony Shafrazi event, as James retells it
Heard as “Shafrazzi”
James says he talked about Ann at length on the show. Links to his Night Fever episode
A creased royal-blue cloth backdrop, with a woven tan chair back behind her
FashionShort swept-back silver-white hair, small drop earrings and an oatmeal linen shawl with faint woven stripes, wrapped round her shoulders
A dove-grey wall and lilac-grey curtain; a shelf with a Hollywood.DC poster, an orange World of Wonder sign, a Fabulous Pop Tarts record sleeve and two Warhol-style World of Wonder soup cans
FashionPlum shirt with a small cream crescent print and black rectangular glasses; shaved head
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