The Story Behind My Sexy Chipmunk Pictures
Sometimes, you gotta get a little frisky for art.
At the makeup store, two consultants approached me. “Can we help you find something?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m doing a photo shoot where I’m dressed as a…” and I lost my nerve. I just couldn’t bring myself to say, “….sexy chipmunk.” It was too embarrassing.
So I pivoted.
“I’m doing a photo shoot where I’m dressed as a…a sexy squirrel.”
I don’t know, I panicked.
One of the consultants reacted like I’d feared: all wide-eyed and agog and midwestern, he reeled backwards, like he couldn’t be a part of this conversation, or else he’d go to jail. But the other took matters in hand. It was like people had come in there asking for makeup to look like sexy rodents every day. She hooked me up with the red matte lipstick I wanted (MAC, darlings), and set me up with my first pair of false eyelashes since college.
When I got home, I threw the makeup in the bag with the costume. We’d been gathering props for a few weeks now. When we loaded up the car, I was surprised at how much stuff we had. The chipmunk costume was in its own special box, and Chris had packed his camera and lighting equipment, plus there were boxes with our specially bought acorn pillows and feather boas. We headed out to the Don Q Inn in Dodgeville, Wisconsin where we’d rented the Cupid’s Corner themed suite. We would have liked to do the shoot closer to home, but Wisconsin was the only place we could find a heart-shaped bed.
Publicity shots are tricky. You want something that’s memorable — and if you’re doing a comedy, you want something that’s fun. But it also has to convey the tone of the show, so audiences have an inkling as to what they’re in for when they buy a ticket. What kind of show is this?
My new play is called Chipmunk’d, and it’s a sexy comedy about existential dread. I decided not to worry about the existential dread part, as I figured viewers would bring that themselves. When was the last time you looked at anything and didn’t feel a little existential dread? It’s in the air!
The title suggests a comedy, which is good, but it’s also a problem, because I give off the vibe of a children’s television host, and it’s not that kind of show. They see my big open face and figure it’s just a matter of time before I pop a puppet on my hand to teach them about colors.
And it doesn’t actually matter what the show is about. My last show, FEAST., was a blood-and-gore-fueled revenge fantasy about fighting authoritarianism where my character described her favorite disembowelments, and one night we had to hold the curtain because a seven-year-old was sitting in the front row. I couldn’t go onstage with the seven-year-old sitting there, because then the whole show would be my character saying lines like, “Do you ever fuck in the grocery store?” and the whole audience would swivel their heads over to the kid to check in if he was traumatized yet. “Are you okay, honey? There’s art in the room, cover your ears!”
And let me be clear: when I say the show is a sexy comedy, it’s not exactly a burlesque. There’s no stripping. It’s a classic Megan Gogerty show where I tell a funny story that maybe also has feelings in it, and in some of the stories, y’know, sex happens. The word “penis” is used more than once. It’s a show for grownups. Should you bring your teenager? I dunno, how cool is your teenager?
And it’s not just about sex, I hasten to add. It’s actually a story about the body, its pleasures and its stresses. But the sex is in there, and I don’t want anybody to come to the show and be unpleasantly surprised.
So how do I let my audience know what kind of show it is? What image says “sexy comedy?”
We took a lot of photos, trying to get the balance right. We needed to err on the side of comedy, rather than fetish. But I suppose once you put the concept of “boudoir photo shoot” alongside “chipmunk costume,” fetish is inevitable.
Some friends have expressed concern that my publicity shots might find themselves in certain dark corners of the web, but I don’t let it worry me. That’s called Being a Woman on the Internet. A woman can’t show off her new sandals without risking being spotlighted in a feet gallery somewhere. In her book Female Spectacle, Susan Glenn argues that 19th century women performers were caught in, “…a central paradox of popular theatre, namely, that it simultaneously magnified and diminished the idea of female agency and individuality.” I’ll argue that it’s even more true in our Instagram-soaked nightmare of a modern world. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. So you might as well do what you want.
And it wouldn’t be the first time my publicity shots were repurposed without my consent. My friend Charlie took this totally innocuous photo of me in grad school:
…and let me tell you, that photo has seen some things. C’est la vie!
Anyway, we had a great time taking photos. Some of them are blurry, and some of them are silly, and some of them, ahem, are for private use. But all of them make me laugh, and I hope at least one of them also delights you, the viewer.
I hope you come to the show. It’s gonna be a hot ticket!
Chipmunk’d premieres at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City, September 9-Oct 2, 2022. For information about tickets, go to riversidetheatre.org.
