Leigh, who has worked for years in various efforts to decriminalize prostitution, says she and other sex workers have reclaimed the word "whore" in much the same way the LGBT community has done with "queer."
"We still giggle every time we say it," she says. "We have so reclaimed it."
And it shows in the lineup of the festival, which runs May 20-29. There will be a Whores' Bath, workshops by Whore College, and An Introduction to Whore Speak - and that's not counting the Roaming Hooker Fest and the Hook Collective.
So, what's the purpose of it all?
The shows are scheduled for Tuesday at 8 and 10:30 p.m., according to club spokeswoman Alicia Albarran. The $55 tickets will be available via the LiveNation website, Albarran wrote in an e-mail.
The women behind the variety show Monday Night ForePlays embrace the absurd. (Watch them mess with gender stereotypes from all angles in the promo clip above from last year.) Among other sketch oddities, they've dressed up people as the bottles in an alcoholic's liquor cabinet -- making the next act, stand-up comedian Rachel McDowell, gleefully tell the audience that seeing a man dressed as a bottle of Jim Beam "was about the sexiest thing I've seen all night!" (McDowell is among our favorite local comedians, a testament to the type of people ForePlays brings in.) They've had Dora the Explorer visit the Tenderloin and converse with a tranny hooker and a homeless man. They've staged Clitoris: The Musical. But on a serious note, these women -- part of the fierce, scrappy, and growing theater company PianoFight -- have grown comedically and theatrically since late 2009, when they began writing, producing, and acting in a new show every few months. Their latest is called Spring EGGstravaganza. It's tonight at the Dark Room Theater.
My friend would later empty the trash and spend the night going through everyone's secrets with a bottle of wine. At its best, the storytelling series Previously Secret Information gets to that level, and PSI has held itself to a high standard.
Its first anniversary show last night at Stage Werx was fairly low-key: no big name guests, no confessions of incest or murder, no cake. But it was a great show that demonstrated once again that there are two kinds of tales you get at a show where people share personal stories. The first is a secret inasmuch as it's never been shared onstage, and it's put out there for a laugh. And the second, well, it reaches the profound and terrifying.
The theater at 446 Valencia is at ground level and seats 80, whereas Stage Werx's current location at 533 Sutter is in a basement and holds 49. The Valencia location also has 17-foot ceilings -- which can better accommodate certain performers such as circus acts -- as well as the upstairs area.
"We sign the lease on Tuesday," Mckenzie wrote in a Sunday e-mail message. "It's for real."
Mckenzie says productions could start there as soon as September, although much remains to be done before a firm opening date can be established. The lease at 533 Sutter continues through November, and Mckenzie says for a while Stage Werx may have productions in each location.
