How We Looked Off-Off
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<<<Back to Michael Smith’s 2009 play about an evening at the Cino in 1965 On to Playing Dress-Up: Costume Shows>>>
(in case anyone ever wants to costume a movie about us realistically)
many photos, as usual by JAMES D. GOSSAGE

The too-large overcoat, always in style with playwrights.1965. Edward Albee, LANFORD WILSON, PAUL FOSTER, Kenneth Pressman, Adrienne Kennedy, LEE KALCHEIM. Behind Ms. Kennedy, Lawrence Osgood.
- GROUPS OF SIXTIES OFF-OFFERS show that we were not nearly so daring as dressers as we were as writers, directors, and actors.
- THE ITALIAN LOOK began the decade.
- Women were in the forefront with MINISKIRTS.
- MEN showed rebelliousness by wearing sports coats with slacks or later jeans, i.e. “not suits.”
- A FEW YEARS LATER, “workshirt” would mean blue denim, khaki, or plaid wool, but since at this time we nearly all worked in offices, a “workshirt” was a white one with cuffs and collar. WOMEN who worked wore dumpy stuff if they were just working till they married. If they were “career girls,” they wore chic little suits.
- “THRIFT-SHOP CHIC,” necessitated by poverty, was our first move towards more revolutionary dressing.
- BRITISH INFLUENCE. Lance and I in variations of Joe Orton’s “working-tough” gear.
- BRITISH INFLUENCE. Marshall in Sergeant Pepper regalia and in Carnaby Street flowered shirt and bell bottoms.
- BRITISH INFLUENCE. Chuck and Dixie, clearly modeled after John Lennon and Emma Peel.
- FUNNY CLOTHES sprang from several directions. Originals like Hope Stansbury with her eclectic mix of vintage clothes had always been accepted downtown. My 1969 jumpsuit took a ritzy leisure look out of the magazines onto the street. Allegra’s 1961 dancer look was an extension of a beatnik style originating in Paris’ Left Bank. The hippie look (here in “Hair” on Broadway, 1968) mixed Beatles-cuts, Third World fabrics and garments, and things like jeans and sandals borrowed from the proles and the poor.
- LONG HAIR, of course. Kenny Burgess, Sam Shepard, me, Lanford Wilson, Marshall W. Mason, William M. Hofffman, Tom O’Horgan, Johnny Dodd. LONG HAIR STORIES: Although Sam, Lanford, and I did not really much resemble each other, yet with our cowlicks and long noses, we did look alike to uptowners not accustomed to long-haired men. I once borrowed five dollars from a fan of Sam’s who thought he was lending it to Sam, and Lanford once posed for a French arts magazine as me when I was too busy at the Cino to spruce myself up.
- KEITH CARSEY about 1967.
- MICHAEL WARREN POWELL, 1968.
- DORIC WILSON, 1969.
- WALTER MICHAEL HARRIS, 1968.
- DONALD L. BROOKS (with Andrew Starr in film, “Pink Narcissus,” photo James Bidgood) 1969.
- 1965. The too-large overcoat was always in vogue with playwrights, for some reason. Edward Albee, LANFORD WILSON, PAUL FOSTER, Kenneth Pressman, Adrienne Kennedy, LEE KALCHEIM. Behind Ms. Kennedy, Lawrence Osgood.
Carolyn Roesbery @ akmediascope@yahoo.com 2nd comment It is hard to know what is costume and what is garb. I love seeing my teachers so young and vibrant.
OH! WOW! In this first street photo I recognized Albee, not Lanford I thought Mrs. Kennedy was Ellen Stewart and mr Osgood, Marshall Mason– Wonderful photos. Great Work Mr. Patrick. Thank you for this incredible, rich and real history. It is the history I only heard about in 1996. One that set me on a course of discovering what my life is an should be, told to me from people who did change my life; gay men to whom I owe everything. I discovered theatre when I was forty-one, that year in 1996. I was liberated and given life sustaning tools.
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