2016 was a crazy year for America, as it was for Peepshow Menagerie as well. It was a year where we had some of our strongest shows yet, but also one where we lost many of our heroes not not only inspired our show in general, but also passed away right before longtime themes that were directly inspired by their work, most notably our Harry Potter parody "CHERRY POTTER AND THE WIZARDS OF BURLESQUE" when actor Alan Rickman died just days before the show and also David Bowie who died before our third annual burlesque tribute to him. Sadly that was just the begining of too many cultural icons we lost that year.
Among our many adventures this year, many regular castmembers of our show trekked down to San Diego for the monster themed edition of TIKI OASIS where not only could Miss Angie Cakes be seen Go-Go dancing, but also longtime friend and performer Charlotte La Bell Araigne'e won the Scream Queen award for best costume for her Land Of The Lost Sleestack costume. That summer, Peepshow producers Chris Beyond and Scarlett Letter continued their duties working for The Burlesque Hall Of Fame with Scarlett as floor manager at the big weekender and Chris as a Producer of the annual Las Vegas Photo Safari which sold out quickly for another year in a row, this time touring some of the popular and secret tiki bar locations in Vegas.
One of our favorite highlights of the year came when our friends at MELTDOWN COMICS asked us to curate a Peepshow Menagerie themed art show in their newest art space and we were very lucky to have the support of many artists and photographers like Chris Beyond, The Yarb, Petrina Mina, Markus Alias, Pixeldrip Gallery, Frank Sonador, Lisa Sparks, VV Trippple, Holly Go Darkly, and even a series of painted canvases painted live on stage by Leggy Lass Greenleaf as part of our "LEGION OF SUPER BURLESQUE" show. The show ran from November thru December and we are still grateful for the opportunity.
This year also marked the most shows and events we took part in up until this point. Aside from ramping up to include most 1st Fridays of the month on top of the 3rd Fridays, we also took part in outside events such as our 2nd year with the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. We had a few lighter months and our lowest moment of the year happened when Joey from New Kids On The Block rented out our club from under us. Unfortunately it happened on the night we were supposed to celebrate our 8 year anniversay so we were quite annoyed. This didn't really help Joey's case in Chris' mind as he was already not a fan of NKOTB.
We capped the year off with a crazy whirlwind three day weekend in December where on top of our regularly scheduled show, we also performed all three days of the ADULTCON adult entertainment convention at the L.A. Convention Center. The first night was really tough, but we learned from it and the rest of the weekend went well. We even signed up to do it again in 2017. So 2016 was a fun, sometimes stressful, and very busy year, but we couldn't have done it all with all of the amazing performers we get to work with from L.A. and all over the world. We can only hope that the country doesn't crumble under our new orange president, but we'll be there to face it and do our best to bring tease, laughs, and fun to everyone we can.
