More Fire! Productions
Encyclopedia
More Fire! Productions was a women's theatre collective active in New York City from 1980 to 1988. It was founded by Robin Epstein and Dorothy Cantwell and based in the East Village
section of lower Manhattan, New York City
. More Fire! Productions created and produced eight full-length plays between 1980 and 1988, becoming known as "one of the city's leading women's theatre groups" for its contributions to the downtown, experimental theatre
and women's and lesbian
theatre scenes of the 1980s. Epstein and Cantwell co-wrote, produced, and performed in the company's first three plays: As the Burger Broils (1980), The Exorcism of Cheryl (1981), and Junk Love (1981), which had numerous runs and became a neighborhood cult classic, "the longest running show on Avenue A." Epstein then wrote and produced The Godmother (1983). Novelist and writer Sarah Schulman
joined the company in 1983 and collaborated on the writing and performing of three later plays: Art Failures (1983), Whining and Dining (1984), and Epstein on the Beach (1985). The final play, Beyond Bedlam (1987), was written and produced by Epstein, who was the only person involved in all More Fire! plays.
to help facilitate the participation of Americans in the "Tree of People," a new project of his Polish Laboratory Theatre. Grotowski's work at that time embodied a search for authentic expression through improvisation
and interaction among participants, rather than performance for audiences. Cantwell and Doba met as participants in the Tree of People project in Wroclaw
, Poland, in the winter of 1979.
Grotowski's focus on improvisatory expression matched and nurtured a strong interest in movement improvisation in the downtown community of the East Village in the late 1970s. Open Movement, the weekly participatory event held at Performance Space 122
(also known as P.S. 122), became a regular meeting ground for New York and European dancers, actors and other artists, a number of whom had taken part in Grotowski's projects. Cantwell, Doba and Epstein were all regular participants in Open Movement. Cantwell and Doba began collaborating with Epstein, who was then primarily a painter, to create an avant-garde, experimental theatre style.
Another founding member was Marianne Willtorp, now a member of the Swedish Film Institute
(Svenska Filminstitutet). Willtorp collaborated on and performed in The Exorcism of Cheryl, Junk Love, and The Godmother. Willtorp's 1981 documentary film "More Fire!" explores the making of the collective's first original experimental play, As the Burger Broils, which used the movement and physicality of restaurant work to create theatre. The film shows the company's improvisational use of restaurant movement and language, and its real-life context in Epstein and Cantwell's lives as busy East Village artists and actresses who earned their livings as waitresses.
As co-founders of More Fire! Productions, Epstein and Cantwell shared a joint vision and aesthetic. Cantwell's writing and acting abilities were crucial to the company's early success. Her primary interest was in creating a passionate, funny, excessive style of acting, using characters and situations drawn with broad strokes and shameless exaggeration. Cantwell's ability to improvise and understanding of theatre inspired and shaped Epstein's own theatrical vision, which also developed out of her work as a painter, interest in popular film, and background as a working-class Jewish New Yorker. More Fire! used the superficial appearance of autobiography––particularly Epstein's––as a framework for the satirical exploration of a variety of themes and genres, including the confessional style of some East Village performance art
. The company's style developed through collaborative improvising and writing, with lesbians and straight women working together to create and sustain an avant-garde, alternative theatre company.
. She performed in carlos ricardo martinez's Teddy and the Social Worker and Art the Rat. She starred with Jeff Weiss in his long-running, episodic show, . . . and That's How the Rent Gets Paid (Part IV). Cantwell also performed with Weiss and members of the Wooster Group, including Ron Vawter
and Willem Dafoe
, at the Performing Garage
. In 1987, Cantwell debuted on Broadway
(at the Longacre Theatre
) in Circle Repertory Company
's production of John Bishop's The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940
.
Epstein, who has been called the "lesbian equivalent of Woody Allen
," continued as the central creative and organizing force behind More Fire! until she decided to disband the company in 1988. She was involved in every aspect of the production end as well as the artistic creation and design. She wrote, often in collaboration with others, all eight More Fire! experimental plays, performed in them, designed sets and painted scenery, created popular music soundtracks, and wrote songs.
Epstein's later work with More Fire! includes Beyond Bedlam and three plays written in collaboration with Sarah Schulman: Art Failures, Whining and Dining, and Epstein On the Beach. Other downtown performers appeared with the company, including Stephanie Skura in the title role in The Godmother, Jennifer Miller
in Whining and Dining and Epstein on the Beach, and Holly Hughes
in Whining and Dining. Writer and performer Deb Margolin
contributed monologues for The Godmother and Beyond Bedlam, and a guest appearance in Junk Love. Some productions (Junk Love and Epstein on the Beach) also included male actors, such as actor/playwright Paul Walker and comic Jerry Turner.
Performances by More Fire! received mixed reviews in The New York Times
and Village Voice. Stephen Holden
of The New York Times wrote: "Obviously, ensembles like More Fire!, which has earned a loyal cult following, are determined to remain outside of the mainstream." C. Carr of the Village Voice wrote of Epstein on the Beach: "Parts of the show were quite funny––especially a parody of Quarry which managed to recreate and mock many of the visual high points of Meredith Monk
's classic within a few minutes. But the gist of the story––that 'hypocrisy is the spice of life' and lesbians will sell out as fast as the next person––made it . . . cynical." The harshest commentary came from Alisa Solomon, also of the Village Voice, who reviewed Art Failures after audience members sent hundreds of postcards demanding a review. Although the postcards were part of the performance, Solomon saw them as a "cry for reviews" and described the play as "politically irresponsible. . . . Instead of taking potshots from a fortress of self-indulgence, why not seriously engage issues of capitalist patriarchy?"
hosted a More Fire! Productions retrospective that included performances of Junk Love and Epstein on the Beach.
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
section of lower Manhattan, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. More Fire! Productions created and produced eight full-length plays between 1980 and 1988, becoming known as "one of the city's leading women's theatre groups" for its contributions to the downtown, experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
and women's and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
theatre scenes of the 1980s. Epstein and Cantwell co-wrote, produced, and performed in the company's first three plays: As the Burger Broils (1980), The Exorcism of Cheryl (1981), and Junk Love (1981), which had numerous runs and became a neighborhood cult classic, "the longest running show on Avenue A." Epstein then wrote and produced The Godmother (1983). Novelist and writer Sarah Schulman
Sarah Schulman
Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, historian and playwright. An early chronicler of the AIDS crisis, she wrote on AIDS and social issues, publishing in The Village Voice in the early 1980s, and writing the first piece on AIDS and the homeless, which appeared in The Nation...
joined the company in 1983 and collaborated on the writing and performing of three later plays: Art Failures (1983), Whining and Dining (1984), and Epstein on the Beach (1985). The final play, Beyond Bedlam (1987), was written and produced by Epstein, who was the only person involved in all More Fire! plays.
Early history
Along with Epstein and Cantwell, another founding member of More Fire! was Stephanie Doba, who collaborated on and performed in six More Fire! plays. In the mid-1970s Doba was working at The Kosciuszko Foundation, a Polish-American non-profit organization having its headquarters in New York City. She was asked by Polish theatre director Jerzy GrotowskiJerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts....
to help facilitate the participation of Americans in the "Tree of People," a new project of his Polish Laboratory Theatre. Grotowski's work at that time embodied a search for authentic expression through improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
and interaction among participants, rather than performance for audiences. Cantwell and Doba met as participants in the Tree of People project in Wroclaw
Wroclaw
Wrocław , situated on the River Oder , is the main city of southwestern Poland.Wrocław was the historical capital of Silesia and is today the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Over the centuries, the city has been part of either Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia, or Germany, but since 1945...
, Poland, in the winter of 1979.
Grotowski's focus on improvisatory expression matched and nurtured a strong interest in movement improvisation in the downtown community of the East Village in the late 1970s. Open Movement, the weekly participatory event held at Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
(also known as P.S. 122), became a regular meeting ground for New York and European dancers, actors and other artists, a number of whom had taken part in Grotowski's projects. Cantwell, Doba and Epstein were all regular participants in Open Movement. Cantwell and Doba began collaborating with Epstein, who was then primarily a painter, to create an avant-garde, experimental theatre style.
Another founding member was Marianne Willtorp, now a member of the Swedish Film Institute
Swedish Film Institute
The Swedish Film Institute was founded in 1963 to support and develop the Swedish film industry. The institute is housed in the Filmhuset building located in Gärdet, Östermalm in Stockholm...
(Svenska Filminstitutet). Willtorp collaborated on and performed in The Exorcism of Cheryl, Junk Love, and The Godmother. Willtorp's 1981 documentary film "More Fire!" explores the making of the collective's first original experimental play, As the Burger Broils, which used the movement and physicality of restaurant work to create theatre. The film shows the company's improvisational use of restaurant movement and language, and its real-life context in Epstein and Cantwell's lives as busy East Village artists and actresses who earned their livings as waitresses.
As co-founders of More Fire! Productions, Epstein and Cantwell shared a joint vision and aesthetic. Cantwell's writing and acting abilities were crucial to the company's early success. Her primary interest was in creating a passionate, funny, excessive style of acting, using characters and situations drawn with broad strokes and shameless exaggeration. Cantwell's ability to improvise and understanding of theatre inspired and shaped Epstein's own theatrical vision, which also developed out of her work as a painter, interest in popular film, and background as a working-class Jewish New Yorker. More Fire! used the superficial appearance of autobiography––particularly Epstein's––as a framework for the satirical exploration of a variety of themes and genres, including the confessional style of some East Village performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. The company's style developed through collaborative improvising and writing, with lesbians and straight women working together to create and sustain an avant-garde, alternative theatre company.
Later history
In 1983, Cantwell began to perform with Good Medicine and Company, founded by carlos ricardo martinez and downtown actor/playwright Jeff WeissJeff Weiss
Jeffrey Weiss is an American playwright and actor on Broadway. Weiss grew up in Allentown, PA, in a Lutheran family of Pennsylvania Dutch descent. In 1992, Weiss' play Hot Keys won an Obie award. His nephew is actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas...
. She performed in carlos ricardo martinez's Teddy and the Social Worker and Art the Rat. She starred with Jeff Weiss in his long-running, episodic show, . . . and That's How the Rent Gets Paid (Part IV). Cantwell also performed with Weiss and members of the Wooster Group, including Ron Vawter
Ron Vawter
Ron Vawter was an American actor and a founding member of the experimental theater company, The Wooster Group....
and Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, at the Performing Garage
Performing Garage
The Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
. In 1987, Cantwell debuted on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
(at the Longacre Theatre
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.-Theatre History:Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, it was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square...
) in Circle Repertory Company
Circle Repertory Company
The Circle Repertory Company, originally named the Circle Theater Company, was a theatre company in New York City that ran from 1969 to 1996. It was founded on July 14, 1969, in Manhattan, in a second floor loft at Broadway and 83rd Street by director Marshall W...
's production of John Bishop's The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940
The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940
The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 is a short comedy by John Bishop. The play was first performed at the Circle Repertory Company in their theatre at 99 Seventh Avenue South in New York City, later moving to Broadway, opening on April 6, 1987, in The Longacre Theatre. The both productions were...
.
Epstein, who has been called the "lesbian equivalent of Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
," continued as the central creative and organizing force behind More Fire! until she decided to disband the company in 1988. She was involved in every aspect of the production end as well as the artistic creation and design. She wrote, often in collaboration with others, all eight More Fire! experimental plays, performed in them, designed sets and painted scenery, created popular music soundtracks, and wrote songs.
Epstein's later work with More Fire! includes Beyond Bedlam and three plays written in collaboration with Sarah Schulman: Art Failures, Whining and Dining, and Epstein On the Beach. Other downtown performers appeared with the company, including Stephanie Skura in the title role in The Godmother, Jennifer Miller
Jennifer Miller
Jennifer Miller is an American circus entertainer, writer, and professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She has lived as a woman with a beard for most of her life. She is a juggler and fire eater. Miller lives in New York City....
in Whining and Dining and Epstein on the Beach, and Holly Hughes
Holly Hughes (performance artist)
Holly Hughes is an American lesbian performance artist. She began as a feminist painter in New York but is best known for her connection with the NEA Four, with whom she was denied funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, and for her work with the Women's One World Cafe. Her plays...
in Whining and Dining. Writer and performer Deb Margolin
Deb Margolin
Deb Margolin is an American performance artist and playwright. Coming to prominence in the 1980s in the feminist political theatre troupe Split Britches , Margolin has since made a string of one-woman shows. A compilation of her texts, Of All The Nerve: Deb Margolin SOLO, was published in 1999 by...
contributed monologues for The Godmother and Beyond Bedlam, and a guest appearance in Junk Love. Some productions (Junk Love and Epstein on the Beach) also included male actors, such as actor/playwright Paul Walker and comic Jerry Turner.
Audience and critics
More Fire! Productions developed a following among East Village theatre audiences. East Village, women's, and New York gay and lesbian publications commented on the company's energy, inventiveness, broad humor, and satire of the downtown arts scene. Other Stages described Junk Love as "savagely witty" and praised the company's "original and daring performers." The New York Native called Whining and Dining "theater as carnival." The Flue, published by Franklin Furnace, an avant-garde art and performance space, noted that "the business is fast and funny, ferociously local." The East Village Eye wrote of Art Failures: "Perhaps Epstein and Schulman's greatest achievement was their ability to crystalize the contradictions at the heart of the theatre/performance world. . . . Along the way Epstein and Schulman knowingly poke fun at themselves and lots of other talented individuals."Performances by More Fire! received mixed reviews in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and Village Voice. Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
of The New York Times wrote: "Obviously, ensembles like More Fire!, which has earned a loyal cult following, are determined to remain outside of the mainstream." C. Carr of the Village Voice wrote of Epstein on the Beach: "Parts of the show were quite funny––especially a parody of Quarry which managed to recreate and mock many of the visual high points of Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
's classic within a few minutes. But the gist of the story––that 'hypocrisy is the spice of life' and lesbians will sell out as fast as the next person––made it . . . cynical." The harshest commentary came from Alisa Solomon, also of the Village Voice, who reviewed Art Failures after audience members sent hundreds of postcards demanding a review. Although the postcards were part of the performance, Solomon saw them as a "cry for reviews" and described the play as "politically irresponsible. . . . Instead of taking potshots from a fortress of self-indulgence, why not seriously engage issues of capitalist patriarchy?"
Performance venues
Most productions were performed at the University of the Streets, located on Seventh Street and Avenue A in the East Village. As the Burger Broils previewed at P.S. 122's Avant-Garde-Arama and then became the first full-length public play or performance ever to be presented in P.S. 122, in October 1980. In 1981, More Fire! participated in the Second Women's One World (WOW) Festival of women's and lesbian theatre, in New York City, where the company performed The Exorcism of Cheryl and an excerpt from Junk Love. The Exorcism of Cheryl was also performed at the 1981 Boston Women's Theatre Festival. In 1986, The Performing GaragePerforming Garage
The Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
hosted a More Fire! Productions retrospective that included performances of Junk Love and Epstein on the Beach.
Plays
In April 2008, the More Fire! Productions archive, including scripts, photographs, reviews, production notes, and videos, was donated to NYC's Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts.- As the Burger Broils (Oct. 1980)
- The Exorcism of Cheryl (April-June 1980; Feb. 1982)
- Junk Love (Nov. 1981, Feb. 1982, April 1982, May 1985, Sept. 1986)
- The Godmother (April 1983)
- Art Failures (Dec. 1983, April 1984)
- Whining and Dining (Dec. 1984-Jan. 1985)
- Epstein on the Beach (Nov. 1985, Sept. 1986)
- Beyond Bedlam (April-May 1987)
Sources
- Austin, Gayle. "Women/Text/Theater." Performing Arts Journal 9, no. 2/3 (1985): 185-190.
- Baracks, Barbara. "All You Need Is Junk." Review of Junk Love, by Robin Epstein and Dorothy Cantwell, University of the Streets, New York. The Flue 2:3 (1982): 24-27.
- Baracks, Barbara. "Deja WOW." Village Voice, 14 October 1981: 103+.
- Baracks, Barbara. "WOW: Funky and Feminist." Village Voice, 7 October 1981: 93.
- Benal, Jolanta. "Failures: Standups Sit Down and Take Over." Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. Gay Community News, 14 January 1984: 14.
- Benal, Jolanta. "Soul on Trial in Grossinger's Dining Room." Review of Whining and Dining, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. New York Native, 14 January 1985.
- Burke, Bonnie. "A Tour of Bohemia's Last Refuge." Advocate, 25 June 1981: 21-23.
- Carr, C. "The Queer Frontier." Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. Village Voice, December 1985.
- Carr, C. On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1993: 87.
- Cashman, Daniel E. "Grotowski: His Twentieth Anniversary." Theatre Journal 31, no. 4 (December 1979): 460-66.
- Chisholm, Dianne. Queer Constellations: Subcultural Space In The Wake Of The City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
- Dace, Tish. "Failures of Sex." Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. New York Native, 2 January 1984.
- Dace, Tish. "Mayhem in the Streets." Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. New York Native, 2 December 1985.
- Day, Susie. "NY Dyke Theater: More Fire! makes more sex satire." Review of Beyond Bedlam, by Robin Epstein, University of the Streets, New York. Gay Community News 14, no. 44, 31 May 1987: 6+.
- Deutsch, Nicholas. Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman. Gay Community News 13, no. 21, 7 December 1985.
- Dunning, Jennifer. "What's Doing in Town and Out." New York Times, 24 May 1985: C1+.
- East Village Eye, unsigned review of The Exorcism of Cheryl, by More Fire! Productions, University of the Streets, New York. January 1982.
- Findlay, Robert. "Grotowski's 'Cultural Explorations Bordering on Art, Especially Theatre.'" Theatre Journal 32, no. 3 (October 1980): 349-56.
- Grimes, Ron. "The Theatre of Sources." The Drama Review 25, no. 3 (Autumn 1981): 67-74.
- Gevirtz, Leslie. Review of Whining and Dining, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. Gay Community News 12, no. 27, 26 January 1985.
- Grubb, Kevin. "Matzohs for the Audience." Review of Beyond Bedlam, by Robin Epstein, University of the Streets, New York. New York Native, 4 May 1987: 33.
- Gussow, Mel. "Jeff Weiss's Rent Gets Paid." Review of And That's How the Rent Gets Paid (Part IV), by Jeff Weiss, Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
, New York. New York Times, 30 August 1984. - Gussow, Mel. "New Stars on Stage and Restaurant Row." New York Times, 10 April 1987.
- Gussow, Mel. "Stage: Junk Love, Modern Romance." Review of Junk Love, by Robin Epstein and Dorothy Cantwell, Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
, New York. New York Times, 18 September 1986. - Harris, William. "How Weiss Pays the Rent." Review of And That's How the Rent Gets Paid (Part IV), by Jeff Weiss, Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
, New York. East Village Eye, February 1984. - Harris, William. Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. East Village Eye, February 1984.
- Harris, William. Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman. East Village Eye, December/January 1986.
- Harris, William. "Wurst Case Scenario." Review Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. East Village Eye, April 1984.
- Hirshorn, Harriet. "Failures Makes It." Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. Womanews 5, no. 2 (February 1984).
- Holden, Stephen. "Avant-Garde Antics for the Adventurous." New York Times, 5 September 1986, C1+.
- Leondar, Gail. Framing the Mirror/Mirroring the Frame: Feminist Uses of Plays within Plays. Master's Thesis. New York University Department of Performance Studies, 1991.
- Mernit, Susan. "Robin Epstein: From Painter to Playwright." New Women's Times Feminist Review (November/December 1984): 7+.
- Miller, Rosalie J. "Lesbian Theater." Visibilities (Summer 1987).
- Schulman, Sarah. "E. Village Alternative to Therapy: Junk Love and Exorcism." Review of Junk Love and The Exorcism of Cheryl, by More Fire! Productions, University of the Streets, New York, Womanews (February 1982).
- Schulman, Sarah. Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
- Shalson, Lara. "Creating Community, Constructing Criticism: The Women's One World Festival 1980-1981." Theatre Topics 15, no. 2 (September 2005): 221-239
- Shewey, Don. "Art from Trash." Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. New York Beat, 25 April 1984: 25.
- Solomon, Alisa. "Bold Whines in New Battles." Review of Art Failures, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, University of the Streets, New York. Village Voice, 21 December 1983.
- Solomon, Alisa. "As the Gender's Bent." Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
, New York. Village Voice 31, no. 37, 16 September 1986. - Tarzian, Charles. "Performance Space P.S. 122," The Drama Review 29, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 84-91.
- Tierney, Regina. Review of Epstein on the Beach, by Robin Epstein and Sarah Schulman, Performing GaragePerforming GarageThe Performing Garage is an off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group , and their primary performance venue.Since 1978, it also...
, New York. WNYC, September 27, 1986. - Walter, Carol. "'Whining and Dining' in the Lesbo Ghetto: An Interview with Robin Epstein." Womanews, December-January 1984: 13.
- Walter, Kate. "Endangered East Village: Gentrification Threatens Lesbian Artists' Last Hold-Out." Advocate, 4 February 1986: 36-38.
- Winer, Laurie. Review of Junk Love, by Dorothy Cantwell and Robin Epstein, University of the Streets, New York. Other Stages, 22 April 1982: 5.