Tigger! is a strikingly acrobatically aeronautical burlesque dancer and when he descends naked to the stage - or into the audience - from the great heights of a performance, he becomes the nutcracker. Dubbed The original King of Boylesque, he is also a brilliant satirist.
As Father McTigger, he performs one of the most gloriously irreverent skits portraying forbidden love between an altar boy and a priest complete with one nipple tassle, the word DADDY written across his chest and a zip-up, sparkly purple thong from which he produces a communion wafer. The act is performed to Olivia Newton-John's "I Honestly Love You" which makes it all the more hilarious, if that is even possible.
JNU: How long have you been in Burlesque?
T!: I've been stripping in a theatrical context (among others) since 1992. It was a gradual morph into what is now called burlesque. By 1997, I was doing acts that I still perform as Tigger! (including Father McTigger and Gender Surrender).
JNU: How did you get started in Burlesque?
T!: I'd made a bit of a name for myself in downtown theatre as "the naked actor" but I was frustrated with the conventions and limitations. Circus friends invited me to perform with them in the back of a bar. I wasn't about to eat fire and no one in a bar wants to hear my Chekhov monologue, but I'd been stripping for a while. I figured I'd make mini dance-theatre pieces in which I'd strip to rock songs. I combined my background in theatre and performance art with stuff I liked to see after my plays were over: circus, drag, stripping. It didn't occur to me that it was actually burlesque until later.
JNU: What did you do before that?
T!: I've been an actor all my life. I've been acting like a stripper for almost 20 years. I wouldn't know what my life would mean nor who I would be without performance.
JNU: What or who are your biggest inspirations and how do they translate into your act?
T!: Inspirations are constant and everywhere: New York City, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Divine, Carol Burnett, the Muppets, my family of fellow performers. They don't translate into my acts, they just inspire me. Their style of self-expression is a spark for me to express myself.
JNU: How long have you been teaching at the School of Burlesque and what do you teach there?
T!: I've been teaching for almost 5 years now at the School of Burlesque and abroad. I have taught boylesque a bit, but primarily I teach Persona or Acting Burlesque. I take my life and degree in theatre and apply it to what does and doesn't work for me in burlesque.
JNU: Do you travel for work?
T!: Yes, plenty, including Italy, Denmark, Cyprus, England, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, France, Canada and all around the U.S.
JNU: And if so, which show in which city was the most memorable?
T!: Maybe the night I stripped and hosted a several-hour show with Kitty Hartl's Cabaret New Burlesque, in a boxing ring on the banks of the Loire River in Nantes, France - all in French.
Another one was when I stripped and hosted 3 different nights of themed wedding parties in a beautiful nightclub that was built just for us in a swanky hotel on the isle of Cyprus. We'd finish at dawn and go skinny dipping in the Mediterranean, then eat a gourmet breakfast and go to bed.
JNU: How do you stay fit?
T!: I do push-ups in my living room and ride my bike everywhere. But the best thing I ever did for my body was to start showing it off.
JNU: What's your upcoming schedule in New York? (Or if not New York, then your next show).
T!: Museum of Sex, Triad Theatre, Highline Ballroom, HERE Arts Center, DC, Vegas, Denver, Chicago, New Zealand, Australia... look me up on facebook for details.
JNU: How did you get your name?
T!: I had been stripping under my slave name for years with Penny Arcade. One night I was dancing onstage at Pyramid when the drag hostess asked my stage name. I suddenly decided I couldn't choose my own stage name because I didn't know what it was to watch me on stage. So I rifled through old nicknames. Tigger! was an old nickname from a boyfriend in 1991. It just stuck and gradually took over my life. Now it's what almost everyone calls me.
JNU: Do you make your own costumes?
T!: No, I can't sew well at all. But I do know how to style an outfit and how to customize a garment to make it individual: glue gun, safety pins, etc. I hunt for odds and ends and piece together looks to suit my characters.
JNU: What was the name of the act you performed at the Dirty Martini premiere at the Abrons Arts Center last year? He was French, in dress and words, and very sassy. You dived into the audience which drew a gasp! I thought it was wonderful.
T!: Merci, cherie. Her name is Lily La Tigresse, which is the name of an old go-go bar in the Pigalle district in Paris in the 90s, a favorite haunt of Jean-Paul Gaultier's.
Photo of Tigger by veteran burlesque photographer, Don Spiro.
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