Tirza's Wine Bath: Queer Performance Out of an Apartment

Madam Tirza was the stage name of Leona Duval, a performer who became famous in Coney Island in the early 1940s for performing burlesque in 40 gallons of a liquid that was dyed to look like wine (Ryan, 2019). 2905 W. 15th St. is the location of an apartment where Tirza was performing her "Wine Bath" in 1949 after her show had been shut down numerous times by a growing wave of censorship targeting burlesque and other "transgressive" performance acts after World War II. In 1946, Tirza's act, along with two other Coney Island burlesque shows, were temporarily shut down by the City License commissioner, Ben Fielding (ibid). This was part of a larger wave of censorship sweeping NYC and the nation after World War II, when government agencies shut down performance venues and police ticketed individuals across NYC that they identified as transgressing normative values. Madam Tirza was well-known as bisexual and resisted conforming to conventional gender roles ; she became a unionized plumber and a licensed truck driver, which helped her maintain independence when her burlesque show went on tour.

Ryan, Hugh. "How This Queer Stripper Saved Coney Island" Out Magazine, March 5, 2019.

Stencell, A.W. Girl Show: Into the Canvas World of Bump and Grind. ECW Press, 1999.

The Billboard: The World's Foremost Amuseument Weekly. Nielsen Business Media, Vol. 61, No. 30, July 23, 1949.