PEGGY SHAW
Peggy Shaw—a performer, writer and producer—is a co-founder of the Split Britches Theater Company, which has “transformed the landscape of queer performance with its trademark vaudevillian, satirical, gender-bending works.” Along with Lois Weaver and Deb Margolin, Shaw started the company in 1980; the same year, she co-founded the WOW Cafe Theater—now the oldest collectively run performance space for women and/or trans artists. One of her solo performances, “RUFF,” is about her stroke in 2011 (and subsequent recovery), which also inspired her first-ever PSA advisory film designed for older people, as well as a Green Screening workshop format for stroke survivors. “A Menopausal Gentleman,” a compilation of solo show scripts, was published the University of Michigan Press. She’s won several Obies, grants, awards and other well-deserved accolades. These days, she teaches writing and performance internationally. “I get up every day and try to do the best with what I have, and then I have the privilege of trying to make something. I make something that wasn’t there before. I make a plan. I make a dinner. I make love. I make a show. I’m a lucky fucker.” Collaborating again with Weaver, Shaw is now developing “Unexploded Ordnances,” about “creating methodologies for mining unexplored potential in older people.”–SLO
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