What Tammy Needs to Know About Getting Old and Having Sex we join Tammy WhyNot on her quest to find out the truth about sex, and all its associations at midlife and beyond.

The “Tammy” in question is former famous country and western singer turned performance artist Tammy WhyNot. She is also the creation of artist, writer, director, scholar and activist Lois Weaver. Tammy will be giving a special performance to share her exploration into aging, desire, pleasure and intimacy.

In preparation for the show, Tammy investigates her subject using a series of workshops and public interventions with elders in Lublin in order to generate local stories and recruit participants for the show. The show will also feature special guest appearances by established artists.

‘Lois Weaver is a playful pixie of performance art’
New York Times

 ‘Those unfamiliar with Shaw, Weaver […] have a rare opportunity to see what cultural scholars have been writing about since the 1980s. Shaw and Weaver are two of the fore-mothers of American women’s theater […] They employ discursive some might say queer performance tactics, freeing female representations in innovative ways. These include direct address, non-temporal sequencing, cartoonish sets, drag, camp, and, most notably, a postmodern performance of “self.”’
OffOffOnline

‘Lois Weaver’s delightful character Tammy WhyNot is a frothy blonde Southern Belle […] She regales the audience with songs that would make most of Texas blush […] It is hard to unpick the Lois from the Tammy […] her winning charm and frank honesty quickly won me over, and by the end I was entirely in love. […] Without seeing her in action, it would seem unlikely that such an unusual and outwardly stereotypical character can woo people into disclosing and discovering things about themselves that they had locked away, yet twenty minutes into the performance, I would happily have told her anything about myself that she wanted to know.’
FringeReview

Lois Weaver is an independent performance artist and activist and Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice, Department of Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. She was co-founder of WOW Theatre in New York and has been a collaborator with the Split Britches Company since 1980. She was Director of “PSi12: Performing Rights”, an international conference and festival on performance and human rights in 2006 and is currently Artistic Director for Air Project, an initiative that nurtures and sustains Live Art practitioners in the UK. Her practice based research uses performance to initiate conversations on human rights in women’s prisons with the project entitled “Staging Human Rights”; technology design with “Democratising Technology”; and the role of democracy in public engagement with “The Long Table”. Current performance as public engagement projects can be found on her website: www.publicaddresssystems.org. Tammy WhyNot has accompanied Lois since 1978 as her alter-ego, performance partner and research associate. Lois Weaver is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow.

Tammy WhyNot was conceived in “The Lysistrata Numbah”, created and performed by Spiderwoman Theatre in 1978, and born again in a caravan under the Brooklyn Bridge in a show called “Upwardly Mobile Home” written and performed by the Split Britches Theatre Company in 1984. She got her start in show business in the late eighties as a solo artist on the New York downtown performance scene appearing at WOW, PS122, The Club at La MaMa and the Limbo Lounge. She made her first international appearance as mistress of ceremonies for Club Girrls at the ICA in 1994. After that she toured the UK with cLUB bENT, presented in association with It’s Queer Up North and Gay Sweatshop. Her celebrated London appearances include, Saturday nights at Duckies, Club Deviance at the Almeida Theatre and “Tammy Whynot’s X-rated Xmas Xtravaganza” at the Oval House and “Tammy’s Art and Beauty Salon” and “East End Collaborations” at Queen Mary, University of London. She has performed in Helsinki, Warsaw, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, NYC, Los Angeles and London. Follow Tammy by visiting www.whattammyneedstoknow.com.

Peggy Shaw is a performer, writer, producer and teacher of writing and performance. With Lois Weaver, she co-founded Split Britches and the WOW Café in NYC. She has received three OBIE Awards, the 1995 Anderson Foundation Stonewall Award, and The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Theatre Performer of the Year Award in 2005. A collection of her solo performances, A Menopausal Gentleman, edited by Jill Dolan and published by Michigan Press, won a 2012 Lambda Literary prize for Drama. In 2014 Peggy received a Doris Duke Performing Arts Award.

Stormy Brandenberger is a professor in the Drama Dance Department of Hofstra University and a collaborative choreographer whose modern dance, multimedia collaborations and theatre works have toured the U.S ad abroad. She has worked with Split Britches Company since 1984. Her choreography has been presented at American Place Theater, Cultural Project Theatre, Dixon Place, DTW, Joe’s Pub, Ohio Theater, HERE, PS122, Saint Marks Church Performance Space and Urban Stages. Vivian Stoll is a musician, audio engineer and music producer. She played drums with bands including Isis, Unknown Gender, Frank Maya, and currently with the neo-folk-rock group, Such As Us. She has worked as an engineer/ producer with artists including Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion, Laurie Anderson, Annabelle Chvostek, Rebecca Coupe Franks, Jon Kinzel, and Rosalie Sorrels whose 2009 album was nominated for a Grammy award. Vivian has worked with Split Britches since 1996 and collaborated on the writing and performance of “To My Chagrin” with Peggy Shaw in 2001 and was sound designer for Ruff in 2011.

Claire Nolan is a freelance editor and filmmaker, and artist/producer’s assistant. Since graduating from Queen Mary, University of London she has experience in both film and theatre; assisting on music promos and commercial shoots, and supporting artists/ producers during performance and art festivals. Claire continues to produce, shoot and edit both promos and trailers for established and up and coming performance artists, as well as providing documentation for practice-based research and video design for live shows. She completed her first short – “The Making of The Falsettos” – in 2013; a 40-minute film documenting artist Stacy Makishi as she developed her latest show “The Falsettos”. www.clairenolan.org.

Jo Palmer is a Freelance Production Manager for Live performance and events. She has toured both nationally and internationally with Split Britches, Stacy Makishi and Action Hero. She was the Technical Designer for Stacy Makishi’s 2013 show “The Falsettos” as well as Split Britches’ “Desperate Archives” at the La MaMa Gallery in New York and The Library of Performing Rights at Encuentro 2014 in Montreal. For the most up to date information on her current and future work please visit www.jopalmer.info.

Hannah Maxwell is a freelance production and artists’ assistant, writer, performer, ex-student of Lois Weaver and graduate of Queen Mary University. She has provided administrative, promotional, and event management assistance to festivals and artists including Bobby Baker, Peggy Shaw, The Expert View Micro-Festival, Steakhouse Live, Bangla Drama Festival and the Wellcome Collection’s “On Light” programme. Her black comedy “Chicken” was performed by Splutter Theater at London’s Rich Mix in February, as part of their “Small Stories, Big City” season.