Lauren Crux and Janny MacHarg

Lauren Crux is primarily a solo performer and monologist, although she loves a good collaboration. Her artwork often blends several different forms: spoken work, text, video, sound poetry, photography and sculptural elements.

Janny MacHarg, a political songwriter and cabaret performer known as ‘The Tallulah Bankhead of San Francisco,’ died in 2003 having made it to the age of 80. She was a lifelong activist, quick of wit, brave of spirit, gifted in the use of humor as a feminist methodology. She and her long term partner Evie Turner were activists, kicked out of the Communist Party for being lesbians. Janny parlayed her concern for social justice into her song writing and performances. Still performing into her 80′s, she was one of the organizers of the Old Lesbian Conference in 1989 and frequently wrote very humorously about issues of aging.

From Janny MacHarg’s Archive

Dinosaurs and Haircuts
Live solo performance and artist book
2009

"Think about being on a blind date: the awkwardness, the hopefulness, the disappointments, the not-knowing. That’s what it was like to begin this process. I kept wanting to bail on the whole thing. But then something happened, and I came not only to appreciate, but to deeply care, to have warm fuzzy feelings for Janny. She loved a good story well-told, and knew the power of humor to by-pass the brain and go straight to the heart. She has gone straight to my heart.

I think Janny and I would have liked each other, even though I don’t smoke, have never liked martinis, and prefer a white tux to a black evening gown. I am creating a friendship with a dead person; I find myself writing, ‘Janny will like this story’ . . . and I notice the shift to present tense.

- Lauren Crux