Join us on Thursday, January 16, 7–9pm at the Red Room at KGB Bar (85 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003, Third Floor).
Our 32nd show in NYC will feature an infamous English muse, an American (not Canadian!) spy, and a Senegalese women’s rights activist.
Your presenters include a very local history buff and two (2) humorists of pen and stage! All held together by Sheila and Molly, per usual! We can’t wait to see your shining faces.
P.S. We are charging a cover to defray costs of the event—if this presents any issue, please contact us and we can absolutely work something out. Tickets purchased online are $10 plus fees; tickets at the door will be $15.
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Your Ladies:
EFFIE GRAY (1828-1897) was the woman at the center of the most shocking love triangle of the Victorian era. Caught between John Ruskin – the art critic who championed the Pre-Raphaelite painters – and John Everett Millais – Ruskin’s protégé and one of the leading pre-Raphaelites, her bold challenge to Victorian sexual hypocrisies led Queen Victoria to ban her from court. Nearly two centuries later, those hypocrisies have lost much of their institutional power – but her story nevertheless resonates powerfully for women as they navigate their complex, often contradictory desires to be muse, mother, and master of their own fate.
VIRGINIA HALL (1906–1982), a.k.a., “The Limping Lady” of Baltimore who f*cked with Nazis, was one of the most daring and effective spies of World War II. Undeterred by losing a leg at age 27, she joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), infiltrating Nazi-occupied France, organizing resistance networks, and orchestrating sabotage missions. Hall evaded capture despite being relentlessly pursued by the Gestapo, who called her that “Canadian b*tch.” (She was neither Canadian, nor a b*tch. Stupid Nazis.)
MARIAMA BÂ (1929–1981) was an influential Senegalese author and women’s rights activist in Senegal. Born and raised in a Muslim family, her novels critiqued inequalities between men and women, religious beliefs, and polygamy. She won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa for her first book Une Si Longue Lettre (“So Long a Letter”), and gave a speech at the 1980 Frankfurt Book Fair. She died a year later of cancer, right before the publication of her second novel Un Chant écarlate (“Scarlet Song”). A school was named after her in Dakar.
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Your Presenters:
NANCY RITTER lives in the East Village and needs more neighborhood friends, so come say hi after the show!
JULIE KLING is a humor, health, and parenting writer based in (a very boring suburb of) New York City. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Scary Mommy, and on-stage at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Sign up for her free and sporadic newsletter Mom Rage(r): Turning Your Mom Rage Into Raging Fun @ juliekling.com
STEVEN MOITY works for The New York Times as a News assistant in New York City. Born and raised in France, he moved to New York 12 years ago. In his spare time, he can be seen performing improv sketches across various comedy clubs.
The Dead Ladies Show 