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New Year's Eve 1969-70 Paste on Paste Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma Madame Butterfly Fairytale Extravaganza Tropical Heatwave/Hot Voodoo Hollywood Babylon Hell's Harlots Les Cockettes Follies De Paris Les Ghouls Pearls Over Shanghai Winter Wonderland Extravaganza Radio Rodeo Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma Smacky and Our Gang Cockettes in Clapland Tricia's Wedding Circus of Life (Elephant Shit under the Big Top) Les Etoiles du Minuit Journey to the Center of Uranus Hot Greeks Miss Demeanor Beauty Pageant

THE SHOWS

New Year's Eve 1969-70 When the Rolling Stone's Honky Tonk Women boomed from the stage speakers, the 'girls' rushed the footlights in a high-stepping can-can free for all, kicking off the first impromptu performance of the Cockettes at the Palace Theatre charging the stage during the intermission of an evening with the Floating Lotus Opera Company, the Cockettes stole the show, and brought down the house with their outrageous drag and raw energy. It started a two-and-a-half year bi-coastal odyssey that sky-rocketed the Cockettes to underground stardom.

Paste on Paste Put together on a shoestring in early Spring of 1970, Paste on Paste was a Valentine's Day offering with a lot of heart. Sets were minimal, consisting of cardboard sprinkled with glitter and feathers, which served as a backdrop for a series of songs and cameo performances by Hibiscus and friends.

Gone With the Showboat to Oklahoma A May musical combining two of Broadway's favorites, done 'Cockette style' with a little dialogue from Uncle Tom's Cabin thrown in. Southern belles in hoop skirts and town whores, danced and "flashed" in between campy patter from Gone with the Wind. This was the first performance to use real sets (a showboat) which collapsed on the saloon girls mid song.

Madame Butterfly A swirl of colorful parasols and kimonos, this show has the distinction of being the only performance done entirely in fake Cantonese. After leaving a candle burning amid the veils and lace of his loft at home, Hibiscus sings Un Bel Di Vedremo as an Oriental waif and as the girls on stage giggle behind golden fans, their house across town catches fire. Done at the Palace Theatre and later taken on the road to Sonoma State College.

Fairytale Extravaganza - June 19-20 Fairytale Extravaganza was a colorful mish-mash of Mother Goose meets Snow White in Never-Never Land. It was a sentimental show and contained all the songs from Hibiscus' childhood and every Disney classic. It was a true Hibiscus songfest ending with the entire cast singing his personal theme song, Some Day My Prince Will Come, followed with an encore of Ave Maria. A collage of characters from Mother Goose to the Wizard of Oz all come to life in this "trippy" celebration of stage and screen fantasy. There are a plethera of Prince Charmings in this extravaganza and every dream comes true When You Wish Upon a Star.

Tropical Heatwave/Hot Voodoo - July 24-25 Hibiscus plays Marlene Dietrich in the jungles and in the Blue Angel with lush, exotic sets and tribal-thumping music. This one features production numbers like By a Waterfall with the entire cast dancing on risers, dripping in tinsel. Done at the Palace as Tropical Heatwave and as a free performance at the New Committee Theatre as Hot Voodoo.

Hollywood Babylon - August 14-15/21-22 An epic debauchery as Hollywood comes to North Beach. A klieg light and red carpet opening for the Cockettes, who inspired by Kenneth Anger's book Hollywood Babylon, bring the sleazy side of Hollywood to the Palace Theatre stage. The sold-out gala performance features stars from Pola Negri to Gypsy Rose Lee, and features dazzling, choreographed production numbers which culminate in a salute to Gene Autry and Dale Evans.

Hell's Harlots - September 11-12 Bikers crash the senior prom as the Cockettes highlight bobby socks and poodle skirts while listening to Elvis Presley sing. Just when the biker's seem to have spoiled the prom, a flying saucer lands and Ike & Tina Turner disembark and save the day when they do a set of their most rockin' hits.

Les Cockettes Follies de Paris - October 9-10 Nocturnal Dream Shows presents Les Cockettes Follies de Paris - October 9th & 10th at the Palace Theatre, read the sylized black and white poster that John Rothermel designed under his nom de plume, Violet Rae. His graphics featured a Ziegfeld girl with a dick hidden in the folds of her skirt which promised the usual Cockette fare, only this time smothered in bernais sauce. Although the follies show was au courant, it might as well have been July 14th in the year 1789, as the performance advertised became a cause celebre for Hibiscus and if there had been a Bastille to storm, he would have done so, high heels and all.Edith Piaf and the Mad Woman of Chaillot are just two of the fabulous French women who's lives are portrayed in this tour-de-force can-can of a show celebrating French song and sentiment, throughout history. From a silent tableau of Garrance and Baptiste, to the recreation of the glamour of the Follies Bergere, the exquisite costumes and glittered headdresses will have you strutting down the Avenue Des Champs Elysees.

Les Ghouls October 29, 30-31st This three-hour Halloween extravaganza is full of ghouls and goblins, all stoned on psychedelics. From the eerie experiments in Frankenstein's laboratory to the arrival of an ambulance to take away the Bride of Frankenstein you will be transported through a graveyard of dancing tombstones, the bowels of hell and a monster cabaret featuring Sylvester as the Queen of Mars. Creatures lurk throughout the theatre and for the finale, join the audience on stage to dance the Monster Mash.

Pearls Over Shanghai - November 20-21/27-28 Pearls Over Shanghai was a comic operetta about white slavery and miscegenation set in the colorful world of 1930's China. With our first original scripted production, Link Martin parted the bamboo curtain, his politics swept aside by his love of the mystery and intrigue of the Orient. This is where he fittingly, placed his crossroads of good and evil. His exotic 'sin town' filled with singing sailors and witty whores, handmaidens and henchmen all take their places in the streets beside Asian aristocrats and gangland czars.

Winter Wonderland Extravaganza - December 31, 1970 In a defiant departure from the Palace Theatre, this show was done at Bimbos 365 Supper Club. Done with minimal cast, the first act of this New Year's Eve show highlighted the best of the previous shows of the year. The Cockettes all hop onboard a Showboat and cruise to the South, to Carnival in Brazil and finally to Paris. Act II featured new material with a winter theme when two, Frosty the Snowmen, roller skate a holiday number and Mrs. Claus sings "The Lady in Red".

Radio Rodeo - January 23 The Cockettes do a benefit for gay rights at Longshoremans Hall, with a Western theme. Squeezed on a stage the size of a postage stamp left little room for choreography but we more than made up for it with rousing saloon songs. Annie Oakley sang in chaps and ten-gallon hat and the town whore did a vampy version of "Strut Miss Lizzie".

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma - March 5-6 "Ladies and gentlemen, Nocturnal Dream Shows presents the all new singing, all new dancing, all new cardboard Cockettes." And the lights come up to reveal Columbia Gem of the Ocean, portrayed by Kreemah, draped in a sheet wearing a 5-pointed mylar headdress and carrying Liberty's torch. Thus begins Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma and the start of our yellow brick road to Off-Off-Broadway. Tinsel Tarts is a well-worn fable of star-struck girls traveling from Hollywood to New York and back to Hollywood in search of stardom.John Rothermel as Madge the Magnificent, chose to play her in full beard and brought down the house in an opening scene when he does a reverse strip, appearing in the buff with his penis covered in silver rhinestones.

Smacky and Our Gang - April 23-24-25 Originally written as a tribute to the 20s this musical got a new spin from the gang and becomes a parody of troupe drug use. Spanky, Darla and the whole gang chew the scenery on stage from Miss Crabtree's classroom to the judge's chambers.

Cockettes in Clapland - May 5 A Benefit for the V.D. Clinic at the Fillmore West was the scene for this outrageous romp. A huge hypodermic needle chases gigantic cardboard phalluses around the stage while squirting toothpaste from the ends of their costumes. A thoroughly funny, but vulgar affair, that no one ever forgot.

Tricia's Wedding - June 11-12 Shot by exploitation king, Mark Lester, the Cockettes spoof the White House Nuptials when Tricia Nixon marries Eddie Cox. Hilarity prevails on film when Eartha Kitt spikes the reception punch with LSD and pandemonium results. An orgy ensues as reserved guests tear off their clothes in a final scene, complete with Mahalia Jackson wielding a bull whip.

Circus of Life (Elephant Shit Under the Big Top) July 2-3-4 The Cockettes exchange sawdust for glitter when they go to the circus. A real fire-eater, flea circus and bizarre acts of every description, including the sleazy pussys, and my portrayal of a singing human ear, replace the usual cabaret scene and make for an unforgettable side-show.

Les Etoiles du Minuit - December 31-1st/Jan. 7-8 For our come-back spectacular an exquisite mirrored set opens the show, as the stage floor becomes the top of a vanity table where all the perfume bottles come to life. From the lavish garden of Louis XIV to Napoleon marching through a stark Russian winter, this show is an irreverent look at French history with a cast of dozens who appear as Marie Antoinette, Madame du Pompadour the Marquis de Sade and five warbling Edith Piafs.

Journey to the Center of Uranus - February 11-12/18-19 This science fiction musical adventure transports a group of lamenting divorcees on a rocket ship from the Las Vegas desert to the planet Uranus were they are forced to endure earthquakes, marauding vegetable people, and Nancy Sinatra songs until Lady Divine, as a giant crab, steals the show.

Hot Greeks - March 24-25-31/April 1 College rhythm meets the Peloponnesian War as Athens U. takes on Sparta Tech for their annual football match. This musical, loosely based on Lysistrata, features the Tri Thigh Sorority girls jiving to the hits of Aristophanes. The kids dance through the ruins and consult the oracle of Delphi (The Hot Twat of Tangier) as they make their way to victory on the gridiron where quarterback Pendulum Pulaski saves the day, for the Gods and Greece.

The Miss Demeanor Beauty Pageant - July 15, 1972 For the final show the Cockettes team up with Lady Divine for a hilarious beauty and talent competition with contestants such as Miss Conception, Miss Shapen, Miss Used and Miss Carriage who perform their unique talents. The event hits a crescendo when things turn from the benign performance of imitating a gold fish to Divine's violent criminal rant where she confesses to eating 5 lbs of raw sugar a day and to the Sharon Tate killings. All hell breaks loose as the girls scuffle for the crown.

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