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Biography
Penny Arcade
Director, artist, cultural icon
Penny Arcade, aka Susana Ventura, is an international cultural icon, revered as a performer, poet, writer, and actress who speaks truth to power. Innovative, charismatic and magnetic, she has brought experimental theater to mainstream audiences and influenced generations of artists around the world.
Since 1992 she has collaborated with former architect Steve Zehentner. Together they have redefined the role of space and of the audience in their work. Frequently hiring artists to collaborate in their work around the world, they have left deep roots in over 40 cities around the world. With Steve’s expertise as a video producer, they have co-helmed “The Lower Eastside Biography Project - Stemming The Tide of Cultural Amnesia”, an oral history video project that has broadcast and cybercast weekly in New York since 1999.
Penny is the author of over ten full-length performance plays and hundreds of solo performance art pieces on racism and homophobia, feminism, the death of bohemia, the commodification of rebellion, the erasure of history, the loss of empathy and cultural amnesia. Penny Arcade debuted at 18 in John Vaccaro’s explosive Playhouse of the Ridiculous, New York’s legendary glitter/glam, rock and roll, seminal queer political theater. At 19 she was a superstar for Andy Warhol’s Factory featured in the Warhol/Morrissey comedy “Women in Revolt. An independent artist for almost 50 years, she preserves the ethos of 1960’s experimental theater.
(Photo: Timothy Greenfield Sanders)
Penny Arcade attending
Beyond Queer & Penny Arcade