NEW YORK—On March 3, Red Umbrella Diaries celebrates International Sex Worker Rights Day with five amazing performers from different walks of life. The program runs from 8 to 10 p.m. at Happy Ending in New York’s Lower East Side (302 Broome Street between Eldridge and Forsyth).
On the bill is Richard Berkowitz, co-author of How to Have Sex in an Epidemic, the first safer sex how-to booklet published after the AIDS crisis befell New York in the early 1980s. Berkowitz, who is a former sex worker and longtime advocate of safer sex, is the author of the memoir Stayin’ Alive: The Invention of Safe Sex and the subject of the 2009 documentary SEX POSITIVE.
Also joining Berkowitz is performance artist Erin Markey, who recently starred in the Tennessee Williams play Green Eyes and played an extended run of her one woman show Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail at PS 122 in 2010.
Also performing are Toronto-based queer porn star Drew Deveaux; researcher Melissa Ditmore, reading from her recent book Prostitution and Sex Work, a historical study of both sex work and resistance; and former lapdancer Essence Revealed. A donation of 15 percent of the bar tab will be made to the Speak Up! media training for sex workers.
The Red Umbrella Diaries is a monthly storytelling series hosted by former sex worker Audacia Ray, where people who’ve tangled with the sex industry tell personal stories about the complications that arise when sex and money mix. In addition to the live events in New York, the Red Umbrella Project runs a weekly podcast featuring stories from the live events, a monthly blog carnival, and storytelling training for sex workers.
Click here to see the full line-up and learn more.
