Pearls Over Shanghai
HELD OVER: Through April 24, 2010!
“Pearls Over Shanghai” is the most successful show in Thrillpeddlers’ history. It’s a comic mock-operetta about white slavery and miscegenation set in the colorful world of 1937 Shanghai, China. Our production marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of The Cockettes, a gender-bending theatrical troupe who not only originated this show, but also exerted a profound influence on the culture of our times, from the phenomenon of midnight movies to glitter rock stars and their outrageous fashions.
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Recent Press
By Leslie Katz for the SF Examiner :: Not only has “Pearls Over Shanghai” survived a flash flood that closed it down for several weeks, the good-humored, gender-bending show is hosting guests of national prominence and questionable tastes — such as John Waters. The director of the 1972 cult classic “Pink Flamingos” (as well as the original “Hairspray”) was in the house at the refurbished Hypnodrome Theatre (in an alley on 10th Street near Bryant) as Thrillpeddlers ...
Chris Jensen for the SF Weekly :: In November 1971, a San Francisco theater troupe became the laughingstock of New York. The Cockettes were a ragtag bunch of acid-tripping Bay Area misfits who had started performing less than two years earlier at the Palace Theater in North Beach. Rex Reed happened to catch a local performance and wrote breathless praise in his nationally syndicated column, calling them "a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater." ...
By Lynn Ruth Miller for For All Events :: In her wonderful and fascinating description of her life as a Cockette, MIDNIGHT AT THE PALACE, Pam Tent says, “Although PEARLS OVER SHANGHAI had long been germinating in the fertile mind of Link Martin, it was extremely fortuitous when the real Peking Opera played the stage at the Palace…..With this play, Link parted the bamboo curtain, his politics swept aside by his love of the mystery ...
Blog
John Waters Visits The Hypnodrome
It was quite a thrill for Thrillpeddlers last Friday night when John Waters came the Hypnodrome to see “Pearls Over Shanghai.” The visit was planned well in advance and I could feel our excitement mounting from the moment we heard the news last November that he was all set to come on January 8th. [...]
Amazing Halloween Weekend at the Hypnodrome
True to form, Halloween weekend was a blast at The Hypnodrome. We sold out all three performances of Shocktoberfest!! 2009: The Torture Garden (including a special midnight show on Halloween night). The 8 pm performance of Peals Over Shanghai was standing room only with most of the audience in full costume. [...]
Thrillpeddlers on “Inside City Limits”
A news story about Thrillpeddlers’ tenth annual Shocktoberfest!! will being airing this week on “Inside City Limits” on Comcast’s channel 11 in San Francisco. The air dates are 10/21 – 24 (Wednesday at 9 pm, Thur at 8 pm, and Fri and Sat at 6:30 pm). The TV crew came to interview me [...]
