October 16, 1992 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Talent Show emcee paid her dues, enjoys success

Harlem born, to a Cuban comedian and a Puerto Rican exotic dancer, Talent Show emcee Marga Gomez thinks of herself as an exotic comedian. Her first gigs were in her parent's comedy sketches, on the stages of Manhattan's legendary Latino theaters, following the likes of Tito Puente or Celia Cruz. Marga never spoke more than a line or two and she had to share scenes with the family Chihuahua but it gave her a taste for show business.

For not quite four years Marga attended college in Oswego, New York where she studied drama and creative writing. She also studied mime but she doesn't want to talk about it. In 1979 she left her homeland and journeyed to San Francisco where she intended to be a hippie. She was too late: by then all the hippies had gone into real

estate.

As Marga had no experience in real estate, she auditioned for Lilith, a feminist theatre ensemble, and got a paying job. As an actress, writer and scenery lugger, she toured extensively with Lilith through Europe and the West Coast for three years. She credits this experience with giving her stand-up material and theatrical monologues a feminist edge.

Marga's stage background also includes two years as an original member of Culture

THE

Clash, the Latino comedy group, and a

season with the Tony award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe.

When San Francisco's comedy scene sprang up in the early 1980's Marga explored it, developing a repertoire that mixed off-beat characterizations with quirky social commentary and sexual politics. In a short time she found regular work at several cabarets, gay clubs and the one progressive comedy club in town.

By 1988 Marga had acquired a loyal following and won the Cabaret Gold Award for "Entertainer of the Year" from the San Francisco Council on Entertainment. She has gone on to charm thousands at Bay Area mega events: Carnival, Comedy Day at Golden Gate Park, The Black and White Ball, and Bill Graham Presents--In Concert Against AIDS at the Oakland Stadium.

Marga is steadily breaking into the national consciousness with appearances on television and at universities, and by entertaining at conferences for a variety of groups such as: The California Association of Bilingual Educators, The U.S. Forest Service Employees in Washington and Oregon, The Spanish Coalition for Jobs in Chicago, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C.

Marga was featured on Rosie O'Donnel's

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Stand-up Spotlight, VH-1, public television's Comedy Tonight with Whoopi Goldberg, and the A&E Network's Good Times Cafe. She has opened for musical luminaries k.d. lang, Linda Ronstadt, Todd Rundgren, Los Lobos, Kenny Rankin, Chris Williamson, and shared the stage with some of America's most talked about performance artists, including Bill Irwin, Reno, Holly Hughes, Pomo Afro Homos and Josh Kombluth.

As a result of an offer from the University of California-San Diego Multicultural Theatre Festival, Marga began to create her first full-length performance monologue, "Memory Tricks," the tragicomic story of Marga's relationship with her mother--from her mother's flamboyant days as a showgirl to her present catastrophic illness. In November of 1990, "Memory Tricks" debuted as a work in progress at the San Diego Multi-Cultural Festival and in April of 1991 it enjoyed a six week sold out run at the Marsh performance space in San Francisco. In the fall of 1991 "Memory Tricks" was chosen to be part of the prestigious "Solo Mio Festival" at Life on the Water Theatre in San Francisco. Opening in July 1992, "Memory Tricks" had a six week run at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre in

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Page 11

San Diego. Steven Winn of the San Francisco Chronicle described Memory Tricks as “an intimate and affecting evening that touches the heart...beautifully wrought character work."

Marga's second performance piece is set in her bedroom. "Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty and Gay" previewed at the Tennessee Williams Theatre in Key West, then opened in October of 1991 at Josie's Cabaret in San Francisco and ran for four weeks to packed houses. In January San Diego's Fresh Dish Productions brought "Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty and Gay" to the Sushi Performance Space where Marga received very favorable reviews from the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times and The La Jolla Light News. The next stop for "Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty and Gay” was the New Repertory Theatre in Santa Fe, New Mexico, followed by a two week run at New York's Performance Space 122, where it was produced in conjunction with the National Performance Network. From New York it went to Washington, D.C. for one week.

Although Marga's latest piece is still undergoing transformations it is basically an insider's look at homophobia, heterophobia, and Margaphobia.

Eric Onner

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