The Only Way Home Is Through the Show

The Only Way HomeIs Through the Show: The Performance Work of Lois Weaver tells the stories of Lois Weaver: one of the pioneers of feminist and lesbian performance in North America, the UK and beyond. Exploring her career, capturing its history, as well as its aesthetics, principles, collaborations, inspirations, practices, innovations, humour, and commitments, this important book documents the story of Weaver’s work by making visible the invisible. It reflects not only on the comparatively well-known work by Split Britches but also on Weaver’s solo projects, her performance interventions and her work as a facilitator and leader supporting democratic access to performance and discussion, and championing human rights.

Writer-contributors include many of Weaver’s most important collaborators, old and new, and many of the most important feminist theorists, journalists and performance makers of the last forty years. Interviews are with seminal performance-makers including Weaver herself, Spiderwoman Theater’s founder Muriel Miguel, and Weaver’s long-time life partner in and performance collaborator Peggy Shaw. The reader is also treated to a wealth of unpublished and published performance work and exciting ephemera, including Weaver’s dirty confessions, lust letters and pieces of memoir, her diary entries and letters as well as substantial documentary and scene-setting images. The Only Way HomeIs Through the Show is a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated compendium of Weaver’s long and wonderful career so far.