xox, Ms. Bea Haven newsletter

Delight Before Christmas

Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:30 pm

November 27 – December 19

Theatre Building Chicago

1225 W. Belmont

$15 – $20

Tickets available on Ticketmaster

This is an original production that includes the most exciting performers from the queer burlesque, variety performance and performance art scenes both locally & nationally.  Read on…

Watch Our Trailer!

Delight Before Christmas incorporates a stunning variety of classic burlesque, modern dance, variety acts, and performance art to tell the story of a hopeless Fox-y News intern who posts a sad message on Craigslist and then is led on a sexy, magical quest by the Fairy Craigster to find the true meaning of the season. Along the way, they encounter a gender-bending gang of burlesque and variety performers who each express the meaning of the season in unique and titillating ways.

One part Baz Luhrmann and one part Dickens, with a dash of 1940’s & 1970’s holiday claymation and a heaping tablespoon of Bing Crosby & Howard Hawkes, combined in a cocktail shaker with several shots naked ladies, boylesque dancers, jugglers, drag and butoh performers, and all the ingredients for a flaming rum punch, Delight Before Christmas goes behind the glittery holiday facade, exploring the agony and ecstasy of the season, with an ending wrapped in a sparkling bow.

Sunday, November 29

Shows at 8 and 9:30
Girlie-Q Presents: Salon deVine
Joie de Vine, 1744 W. Balmoral @ Ravenswood
No Cover

Presenting Chicago’s finest burlesque and variety performance in a revue in one of Chicago’s most intimate spaces. Come and sample fine wines and handcrafted cocktails, enjoy glamorous queer burlesque performance, and revel in the beauty of one of Andersonville’s hidden gems.

No cover, ample wine list, free parking, located three blocks west of Clark Street on Balmoral.  This week features Bizarre Sally, Kitty Victorian, Holly Peno (all the way from MIAMI, people!), and yours truly.  Every 2nd and 4th Sunday, always free.

* * *

The Holy Trinity: Fans, Gloves and Panel Skirts with the Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins, Atlanta’s “Best Burlesque Dancer”

T Minus 3 Days

Well, we are in the thick of it now.  I woke up at 5 a.m. because I was so excited, I could barely sleep.  We have sold seven tickets so far (which isn’t much, admittedly, but the fine folx at the Theatre Building seem to think we’re going to do REALLY well in walk-ups!) and of course I am nervous.  There is a lot (of money) on the line.

Note to self: Christmas AND sparkly boobs?  How can we lose?

But the tech last night was so smooth and seamless, I could barely believe it.  It was probably the most fun I’ve had in the last few months because it was so engaging and awesome.  I can barely describe how lucky I feel that I am able to take time off and really engage in what I am passionate about.  It’s been a long time coming, but I can finally see the forest in the trees.  And know what?  It’s beautiful.

There is still so much to do, but there are four whole (day-job-free) days to do it in.  Yesterday, I took the set designer to the Textile Discount Outlet, someplace near the Ohio off ramp (right up the street from my podiatrist where I got the P.T. on my heels last summer) for fake snow, and then Menards, which is the epicenter of light-up Christmas crapola.  Today, we’re headed to Metro Sales on Montrose–home of cheap crafts supplies, faux branches, and glitter–and then it’s back here to continue editing video footage for the show and another tech rehearsal tonight.

OK.  Better get to the gym.  I’m trying to keep my commitment to myself to go there every day while I’m off work to get back in the habit.  I am extremely resistant to that idea at the moment (because there is SO MUCH TO DO) but I think it will help manage my stress level.

Exes and ohs (as my darling friend Vag would say),
Ms. Bea Haven

Quick Poem

So much
and so little.

Today, I choose
detail work
of the banal
variety.

Not to say it’s not
Important
but it just weighs less
than so much more.

Final Push: Feeling Grateful Again

I’ve been spending the last week feeling grateful.  I guess it’s probably this time of year that does it to me–the holidays don’t make me depressed like some people, they just make me want to reconnect with my friends and reach out to people and appreciate them.  I blame my mom.  She always stressed that the holidays were really a time to pull your family & friends close and celebrate the madness that they were/are.

Sidenote/reminder to self: Call your Aunt Betsi.

I was talking to my therapist (yeah, yeah, back in therapy.  My therapist is an effing genius) the other day and we were discussing the concept of bringing your “best self” to things that you’re doing.  It was a good concept for me to remember.  I can get really stressed out and feel overloaded, but when I am mindful of the best self idea, it all seems easier.

Speaking of easy, the other night was fun.  I took a night off from preparing for this show and had dinner with E and Aunty Onion.  It was so great to see them.  I hadn’t spent any time with E for the last two months.  She made “breakfast for dinner” and we all caught up.  (Sidenote about the potatoes that she made–Oh man, I woke up craving them yesterday AM and I still feel like if I had them for breakfast today, I might not be able to get them into my mouth fast enough.  So delicious.)  After that, I made a bad decision to go out with my friends the “Partybaughs” and drink a lot of beer and do Mary-Oke.  (Karaoke at Mary’s Attic).  It was fun, but regrettable yesterday at work and rehearsal.

I-Tunes note (from putting music with the word “highway” on shuffle–I was listening to tracks from E’s brother’s old radio show Forgotten Highway):  A really weird remixed version of “Ventura Highway” just popped on.  It is amazing and strange.  I’ve been working on getting all of T’s CDs loaded into my I-Tunes and this is from that effort.  It reminds me of the remix that my friend MarMar made of Dust in the Wind a few years back.  Alligator lizards in the air.  Word.

And speaking of rehearsals–Last night’s rehearsal was so great–It’s nice to finally see the show getting into performance shape.  There’s still a lot to do, but I have no doubts now about the fact that we will launch an adorable and funny holiday show next week.  It’s a really charming piece with just enough weird thrown in to keep it interesting.  I’m really proud of it and I’m extremely jazzed about the talented people I am working with.  (Back to the grateful feeling) From the scriptwriter who churned out hilarious dialogue in what seemed like a half-second to the spot-on physical comedy of Special K and the Fairy Craigster to the crack team of sexy stagehands and the relieving, calming presence of Finchy…It’s all wondrous and fantastic.

All right, I have to get back to the never-ending whirlwind I call my life. I will leave you with the lyrics that I wrote last night (in about five minutes.  Praise the sweet baby jesus for my ability to crank crap out when I have to) for our finale.  It’s a parody song to the tune of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.

Hark! The Fairy Craigster sings!
Special K learned lots of things
About herself and Christmas spirit
Holidays here, no need to fear (it).

Joyful all performers rise
sing K’s triumph of surprise
That she found herself today
In the Fairy Craigster way

Hark! The Fairy Craigster sings!
Special K learned lots of things!

Have lovely weekends, kittens.  See you tomorrow night at Mary’s Attic and a week from today (GULP) at the Theatre Building.

Stripping Vs. Burlesque Redux

It has been a long time since I wrote anything. That is not a practice that I like very much–leaving the blog for so long. It just reminds me that I need to practice what I truly want, which is to have more time in my life to reflect, think, and write.

So, this morning, someone posted something on my Facebook–yes, this is going to be one of those meta discussions where the virtual discussion on Facebook provides a platform for deep thoughts from Ms. Bea at 7am–and I wanted to respond. I responded a little bit on the FB, but this is a topic that comes up quite a bit and is good fodder for discussion.

So, yesterday, I got contacted by a friend of a friend who’s booking some entertainment for the holidays. Awesome. I love corporate gigs, because they often mean good money, great craft service, and really appreciative audiences (who don’t spend their whole time drinking Miller Lite and discussing the Bears. Cough. But I malign my sisters…). Anyway, the gist was that this was a men’s club of lawyers (warning bells) who wanted to know if such a thing as “comedy strippers” existed (red flag!) and if so, could I find some to perform at their mens’ club gathering? Last year, they hired comedians and it was a hit.

Now, I can only assume that the conversation leading up to “Do comedy strippers even exist?” went something like this:

Attorney 1: Man, those comedians last year were FUNNY. Let’s do that again.

Attorney 2: Yeah, but Chip was saying we should get strippers.

Attorney 3: Wait, dudes, what if there was such a thing as a COMEDY STRIPPER?!

All (muffled crowd noises): Oh yeah, good idea. Skip, you’re a genius! Totally. Sexy AND funny! Dude! Hot and hilarious!

I politely told the guy that if he was looking for striptease (ala vintage style) with a campy, hilarious flavor that we could definitely bring them a great show. I know a lot of gals who are pretty hilarious and do the striptease. However, if they were looking for people who fit a generally mainstream stripper aesthetic, we were definitely not their girls. We tend to have a more “alternative” look and are not all skinny, blonde, and large-breasted. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if that was the look they wanted, we were not it. But I said that we are hilarious and we are extremely sexy.

Then I posted on Facebook that I am not a comedy stripper, just to see what kind of response I got.

One of the responses (actually two, one responding to the other) got me thinking again about this idea of burlesque/sex work/stripping. On one hand, there is the argument that burlesque is not sex work because it does not “denigrate” the woman–as though all sex workers are somehow “lower” than women who would choose burlesque. On another, we are all getting naked it in the end, so what’s the dif? And then there’s the concept (not so popular in mainstream society) that there is such a thing as a woman who chooses sex work because it pays a lot of money and who has agency in her choices.

Either way, it comes down to class. I believe that people who think that burlesque is not sex work or not stripping (if you don’t want to call stripping sex work) have some kind of unexamined classism at work. There’s no doubt that the style of burlesque differs from the style of modern stripping. And there’s no doubt that the theatrics are different–one’s more obvious than the other. But there’s also no doubt that burlesque is the great auntie of modern stripping. When the striptease evolved, burlesque performers were not modern performance art practitioners dabbling in a “naughty art form” for tits and giggles. They were, as strippers are today, considered a “base” form of entertainment.

I really think that modern burlesque performers who try to draw a distinction between themselves and strippers are attempting to 1) justify their work to a middle class audience that thinks that taking off your clothes is shameful; 2) trying to distance themselves from women who strip for a living because they see those women as “lower” than themselves and 3) trying to pull the idea of burlesque into the real of “legitimate” entertainment, as though it’s not already there. This argument almost always comes from a defensive place on the part of the dancer and it is really popular with the press.

Whenever the question comes up for me, I liken it to a front of the hand/back of the hand thing. Neither could exist without the other. I try to educate members of the press, especially (since we have a really well-known J-school just north of us) to the younger cadre that love to write about us. I always say that burlesque differs from stripping in a few ways, but I would never say that one is “better” than the other or malign a stripper for choosing that form.

Yes, it is true that the styles differ greatly–in setting, costume, makeup, movement and choice of music. The production values are generally more slick in a stripping establishment and more hown-grown in a burlesque context. Audiences are probably different, in that more women tend to come to burlesque shows.

But audiences expect one thing that runs through all of this: nudity. You can’t call either thing by its name without that expectation being fulfilled.