A Quote by Karen Abbott

Classic burlesque in the style of Gypsy which many modern burlesque troupes practice is, at its core, so playful and teasing and innocent. It's not hardcore stripping so much as letting your body tell a story; the women are playing characters and unfolding a complete narrative onstage, with beginning, middle, and end.
Burlesque thrived during the Great Depression, and by extension, so, too, did Gypsy [Rose Lee]. Men could no longer afford to pay $5.50 to see a show on Broadway, but they could scrape together $1.00 for a matinee at a burlesque house.
Just the whole concept of burlesque, I've always been fascinated with it. I've always collected so many books about burlesque.
In the drag community it's mostly women in the audience, even for burlesque. I think people look at strippping as a male gaze thing and I think the actual neo-classical burlesque community is more about women supporting women and their creativity, along with freedom of expression.
You know what my earliest memories are? Going from one burlesque town to another. My father was in burlesque.
There have been a lot of roles and scripts that have come my way but nothing that really inspired me or intrigued me like when "Burlesque" showed up at my door. Just the whole concept of burlesque, I've always been fascinated with it. I've always collected so many books about burlesque. I've been intrigued by the time that it's set in, in the 20's, 30's, 40's and so I knew it was a no brainer for me to be a part of once I met with the team.
When you tell a story, there are imperatives of structure, of style, of pacing and all of this, that are there simply because you want to make it a good story. When do you introduce your characters? When do you put them onstage, when do you take them off the stage? How do you weave the different threads of the narrative together?
Her sister [June Havoc] said the musical portrayed who Gypsy [Rose Lee] wanted to be before the burlesque thing happened she wanted to be this beautiful, romantic person with dreams. So Gypsy told the story of her life as she wished she'd lived it: embellishing, softening the edges, eliminating certain things altogether.
I've been involved in burlesque for a really long time and I've always been really interested in burlesque, and I was writing musicals for different studios.
Me personally, I want to entertain people above all. When you look back at burlesque in history and the real golden age of burlesque, those entertainers were there to entertain, and there wasn't usually some big political message behind what they were doing.
To just tell a story from beginning, middle and end doesn't motivate me that much.
I know my comfort zone and I know what my strong points are and my first love was always music. I'm a huge cinema fan. I was taking my time; I got offered a lot of scripts and things along the way but until Burlesque showed up at my doorstep, it really spoke to me. I have a collection of burlesque books at home that I've had for years. I've always been intrigued and fascinated with the topic, the beauty and the art of it and the comedic value of it. I think it's just a beautiful, empowering thing for women.
I'd done drag since I was 14, for special occasions, and in 2010 a friend of mine with her own burlesque group was looking for a host. During a party I was just fooling around, taking the microphone, saying stupid, funny things, and she asked me afterward if I wanted to host her burlesque show every Saturday.
There's something about getting onstage in a play where the actor tells the story, beginning, middle, and end, the way they want to tell it. For me, it's the most powerful place to be, and it's the most empowering place to be.
Moviemaking is a time machine: narrative spliced into fragments and reassembled into a constant present, the end of a story shot before the beginning, which is shot after the middle.
I used my daughter's crayons for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle.
I do think the challenge, in a way for me, is to write a narrative film and when you finish watching it you feel like it's a collage. You tell the narrative, you tell the story, but you feel like you've created this tapestry. But it also has a shape, a story. So I think there's a middle ground that I try to strike... away from where everyone else seems ready to go, which is, setup, payoff. You know, He's afraid of water, oh, and at the end he's swimming in water - oh, my God. I hate that stuff.
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