San Francisco theater company/drag troupe founded in 1969, seen by many to be the transition point in San Francisco culture, combining elements from the long-standing hippie movement and the emerging gay subculture. A group of gay hippies, straight female groupies, and general weirdos who mixed psychedelia with camp, wearing thrift store outfits mimicking stars of the Hollywood's golden age with glitter on their beards and genitals began performing monthly midnight revues during movie showings at the Palace Theater.
Members included:
- Hibiscus, who, a few years earlier, as a clean-cut kid was immortalized in the now famous photo sticking flowers in soldiers' guns during an antiwar protest. Later, formed another drag performance group called The Angels of Light.
- Scrumbly (Richard Koldewyn)
- Kreemah Ritz, who opened the revue shows dressed as the Statue of Liberty.
- Sylvester (James), who later became a successful disco singer, songwriter, and producer
- Fayette Hauser, now a successful photographer
- Dusty Dawn and her son Ocean Michael Moon
- Miss Harlow, also a groupie and a member of Cynthia Plaster Caster's Plaster Casters of Chicago
- Divine, not a member but starred alongside them in Journey To The Center of Uranus
Extremely popular with the counterculture and mainstream audiences, the group's time together was short-lived. Many members would leave to pursue other projects in music and the theater.
Sadly, many of them contracted AIDS in the 1980s and have died.
A documentary about the group was made in 2002.