Why Penny Arcade?
Well, you know in 1967 you could name yourself anything you wanted because there was no check coming anyway. I was taken in at 16 by a 27-year-old gay artist who lived in a one-room studio. So I was coming down from LSD one night, and I picked up a paperback book off a trash can on the way home and the protagonist’s name was Penny Kincaid. And when his alarm went off at 6 in the morning, and he groaned the groan that meant, “Oh, she’s still here” – I said, “Hey Jaimie, I changed my name!” And he said, “Oh really, darling? To what?” And I said, “Penny Arcade,” and he said, “Would you like an egg?” On the days that he liked me, I had a soft-boiled egg with him in the morning. So it was a joke, but when the press asked me about it when I started with the Play-House of the Ridiculous, I would say that I was saving my real name for when I did something good. But it took so long I got stuck with Penny Arcade. Q: How would you describe the show? A: It’s a blend of political humanism and eroti
