Retro Coco May 1, 2009

Acclaimed performance artist Miss Coco Peru (aka actor-writer Clinton Leupp) returns to the Gay & Lesbian Center for this retrospective of all three of her celebrated, gender-bending solo plays written for the Center's Renberg Theatre: Glorious Wounds... she's damaged, Undaunted and Ugly Coco. The three plays combine wryly humorous monologues, adventurous and honest storytelling, and even song.

Glorious Wounds... she's damaged
May 1 & 2 at 8:00pm
May 3 at 7:00pm

LA Weekly hailed Glorious Wounds...she’s damaged as “hilarious, inebriating, and elegant all at the same time... Miss Coco is not simply a drag queen/gender illusionist but a stunningly expert entertainer who relies not on jokes but on honest stories about real life. The tales cover school-yard taunts, a harrowing rehabilitation following a fall through a glass shower door at age 16, the loving acceptance of slightly weird parents, a relationship with Raphael (‘…he’s Spanish’) and even an abduction by aliens.”

Miss Coco Peru Is Undaunted
May 8 & 9 at 8:00pm
May 10 at 7:00pm

Miss Coco Peru Is Undaunted took the city by storm, prompting the L.A. Times to proclaim Miss Coco Peru “drag queen extraordinaire” and “a heavenly hoot.” It continued, “she has straddled the divide between saint and sinner, ladylike sweetness and stevedore crassness... Wry and uncensored, the show is a hilarious personal exorcism, with music, no less. Hey, that’s entertainment.” The evening of song and monologues ponders her life, her travels, even her obsession with the Little Mermaid, and continues her pursuit of Truth, Beauty, Freedom and, of course, Cash.

Ugly Coco
May 15 & 16 at 8:00pm
May 17 at 7:00pm

In Ugly Coco, Miss Coco asks the urgent question: Can a drag queen save the world? In classic Coco Peru fashion, the show is as hilarious as it is moving. In the words of Back Stage West: “Leupp has a way of tossing out about a million ideas and stories, and at first it looks like standup in heels. As the performer continues, however, first one thread and then the other are deftly picked up and woven together, and by the time it’s over, elements as disparate as the Peter Pan ride at Disney World, drag as a calling, and a favorite stained-glass window at St. John the Divine synthesize into something that hearkens to the very root of theatre: storytelling as immanence.”

Official Website: http://www.lagaycenter.org/boxoffice