WOW Café Theatre / Lower East Side Printshop

History

WOW Café Theatre
The legendary WOW (Women’s One World) Café Theatre bills itself as the “oldest collectively-run performance space for women and/or trans artists in the known universe.” It started in October 1980 as an 11-day international women’s theater festival, with 36 shows from eight countries, “performed for hungry New York lesbians.” A year and a half later, the group found a space at 330 East 11th Street, where year round it featured performances by women and transgender people.

Around 1984, the theater moved to its current location at 59-61 East 4th Street. As one of the premiere centers for lesbian theater in New York, WOW has been associated with such artists as actor/writer/producer Peggy Shaw, director/playwright Lois Weaver, performance artist/playwright Deb Margolin, performance artist Holly Hughes, performance artist/playwright/comedian Carmelita Tropicana, and Lisa Kron and The Five Lesbian Brothers. Shaw and Weaver are also known for their performance work created under their Split Britches company label.

WOW is part of the Fourth Arts Block (FAB), a neighborhood non-profit established in 2001 that promotes ethnic and racial diversity, affordable programs, and training for up-and-coming artists. Just two of the several other cultural venues that form part of FAB are the New York Theatre Workshop and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

Lower East Side Printshop
The Lower East Side Printshop was founded on the fourth floor of this building in 1968 and remained there until 2005. The cooperative printmaking studio was devoted to offering printmaking resources to artists of color. Chinese American artist Gin Louie began as an instructor there in the early 1970s and went to become its director from 1978 until 1989.

Entry by Jay Shockley, project director, with additional content by Ethan Brown, project consultant (March 2017; last revised August 2022).

NOTE: Names above in bold indicate LGBT people.