PENNY ARCADE: BAD REPUTATION: PERFORMANCES, ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS with texts by Ken Bernard, Chris Kraus, Sarah Schulman and Steve Zehentner

Semiotext(e), 2009, First edition, 196 pp., 7 1/4" X 10 1/2", Hardcover Very good An autobiographical trilogy by a cultural icon of Downtown New York. A reform-school runaway at thirteen, a performer in the legendary New York City Playhouse of the Ridiculous at seventeen, and an escapee from Andy Warhol's Factory scene at nineteen, Penny Arcade (born Susanna Ventura) emerged in the 1980s as a primal force on the New York art scene and an originator of what came to be called performance art. Arcade's brand of high camp and street-smart, punk-rock cabaret showmanship has been winning over international audiences ever since. This autobiographical trilogy of plays represents her at her best. Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! is Penny Arcade's raucous, cutting-edge sex and censorship show, (which continues to be a commercial hit around the world), featuring the daily life of a receptionist in a brothel, the upbringing and rearing of a “faghag,” the evolution of the New York gay scene in the 1990