The Hot Peaches was New York’s first explicitly queer theater company, founded in 1972 by Jimmy Camicia in the wake of a visit by the Angels of Light. Recognizing the need for a theater made by gay artists for gay audiences, and spoken in a distinctly gay vernacular, Camicia wrote The Wizard of U.S., the first of dozens of productions that would come to define the troupe’s anarchic and irreverent spirit.
What began as an ad hoc and constantly shifting collective evolved into a vital force in downtown performance, sustaining more than two decades of continuous work. The Hot Peaches fused agit-prop politics, topical satire, drag performance, experimental theater, and cabaret, guided throughout by a fierce commitment to entertainment. Their performances were exuberant, confrontational, and deeply engaged with questions of queer visibility, liberation, and self-invention.
Among those associated with the company were Peggy Shaw, Marsha P. Johnson, Ian McKellen, Jackie Curtis, Wilhemina Ross, Bette Bourne, and Ondine. Camicia’s productions toured widely across Europe, helping extend the group’s influence far beyond New York. The Hot Peaches formed a crucial link in a lineage of queer performance that stretched from the Cockettes and the Angels of Light to Bloolips and Anohni‘s Blacklips Performance Cult.
About The Downtown Performance Series
NYU Skirball and Artifacts have teamed up to produce NYU Skirball Presents Downtown Performance, a series spotlighting the directors, performers, and artists who shaped the movements loosely defined as “Downtown.”
Inspired by the cultural history rooted in NYU Skirball’s neighboring blocks, the Downtown Performance series captures in-depth interviews with living legends of performance. For more on NYU Skirball, please visit their website.
