Scarlet Masque Theatre Journal New Beginnings and Fond Farewells Vol. 1 | Page 18

11
organized regularly scheduled events that made the WOW Café Theater more or less the space
it runs as today. After Holly Hughes stepped down from the mostly singular leadership position,
Susan Young stepped in as the manager/booker for the space with the group intent to not put all
of the pressure on one person as they did with Hughes. All of the original producers, Shaw,
Weaver, Cami, Mark, along with Carmelita Tropicana, Moe Angelos, Alice Forrester, Chris
Henry, and Debra Miller felt a sense of true community within the WOW Café Theater. This was
their passion, and it didn’t start off easily, as all of them had regular “straight” jobs that they
pursued, and Young even lived in the theater for a long time while she maintained it (which was
not unusual for lesbian curators or performers who had their own spaces). Its position as a
space outside of the “regular” world of theater offered a space for these mostly lesbian and
queer female artists to explore themselves freely with a sense of acceptance for what they
wanted to do, often in the face of opposition from those who see the works or artists outside of
this space that they normally inhabit.
Split Britches was workshopped at the first WOW Festival in October 1980 and was
officially premiered at the second WOW Festival in October 1981. It was conceived and directed
by Lois Weaver, and written by Peggy Shaw, Deb Margolin, and Weaver (all of whom were
original producers of the festival). The cast for the workshop included performers Cathy Gollner
and Naja Bey, but the iteration at the time of the premiere only had Shaw, Margolin, and Weaver
as Della, Emma, Cora respectively. The play takes place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia, and is set up as a presentation of a family picture slide show that images through the
lives of three older women who live together in poverty. Della is a lesbian, and acts as caretaker
for the impromptu “family,” Emma is the senile philosopher and third wheel to Della and Cora,
who is slow and has never really left the farm (except to go to the Market on Thursdays). In an
excerpt of the conclusion of the play, we are first confronted with Della giving an impassioned
monologue about the distresses of her life, mostly stemming from her frustrations at