Eat Breakfast and Watch LGBT History Unfold, in The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

“The significance of the 1966 uprising in the Tenderloin has only recently been appreciated, and this play at New Village Cafe does it justice.”

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A little-known, vital moment in LGBT history: SF diner riot lives again onstage

“…What they wound up with is a play, with a largely transgender cast, that unflinchingly examines the lives of queer and transgender people living in the Tenderloin at the time.”

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A New Generation Gathers Strength from the Courageous Queens of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

“…The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, which ran for just over two months in San Francisco’s New Village Cafe, collapsed the distance between audience and performer, lived history and theatrical retelling. Playgoers sat at the “Compton’s” counter, ate a meal and watched a group of transgender women and drag queens decide they’d withstood enough police harassment and brutality—it was time to fight back…”
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Late night at Compton’s

“…The world premiere of an interactive theater production inspired by the historic riots that launched transgender activism in San Francisco opens for a four-week run on February 22 at the New Village Cafe… Tickets [are] already sold out for the first weekend, and include a meal (breakfast for dinner), which is served before the play begins…”

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Pull Up a Stool to LGBT History at Immersive Dinner Theater in a Real Diner

“How do you dramatize a little-known but pivotal moment in civil rights history without slipping into the staid and didactic territory that most theater in this genre tends to inhabit?

That’s the dilemma tackled by the Tenderloin Museum and its new production The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, and their answer is a night of vivid, immersive dinner theater set in an actual, functioning diner…”

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Late night at Compton’s

“For decades, the story of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot was lost to history. Few people knew about the courageous drag queen who fought back against police with a cup of hot coffee, or the transgender women who took to the streets that night.

But now a theater piece is bringing that act of resistance back to life…”

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“The Tenderloin Museum Re-Creates The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

It began with a hot cup of coffee.

On a warm night in August 1966, a group of transgender women were hanging out at the 101 Taylor St. location of Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. Staff called the cops. An officer moved to arrest one woman for the then-crime of cross-dressing.

She threw coffee in his face. In the resulting commotion, the windows were smashed. Although the press didn’t cover it at the time, people made a similar show of force the next evening…”

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Tenderloin Play Depicts 1960s Fight For Transgender Rights

In August 1966, members of the Tenderloin’s transgender and gay community launched one of the nation’s first militant protests against police harassment and brutality at Compton’s Cafeteria.

This week, a small café in the neighborhood becomes a stage for an original play about a moment when TLGB equality joined the national conversation about civil rights.

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Tenderloin Museum turns 2 with history-themed shows

The Tenderloin Museum celebrated its second anniversary Saturday with a community day of free activities including a peek at a new play about the neighborhood’s pivotal 1966 event in the fight for gay rights.

“The history in this neighborhood is unbelievable. Very few people know about it,” said playwright Mark Nassar, as he introduced the first reading of “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.”

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