club-valencia-rose

Clubs @ AMUSEum

• Valencia Rose Restaurant & Cabaret •

Chapter excerpt

Bay Area Comedy History • by Nina G • 2022

The Valencia Rose was a cabaret converted from a mortuary on Valencia, the street that bridged the Castro with the Mission. At the time, the Castro was what Ammiano classified as “dickcentric,” or predominately male. The Valencia Rose would have a mix of the queer community, whereas other bars were predominately gay or lesbian but not both. When Ron Lanza and Hank Wilson opened the Valencia Rose in 1982, Ammiano approached them about having a “gay comedy night.” They asked him what gay comedy was. Ammiano admitted, “I don’t know. All I know is I go to straight comedy clubs and I try to be funny and I talk about being gay and they want to eat my liver! I need a place to develop.” With the help of Ammiano and comedian Carol Roberts of Femprov, the Valencia Rose transformed from a mortuary to a cabaret and birthed the room considered to be the first of its kind featuring gay comedians. Ammiano hosted a Sunday open mic for people who wanted to try their hand at comedy and others who wanted to work on their acts in a place where they felt safe, performing to an audience that embraced a queer perspective. A Saturday showcase soon followed with more professional and polished comedians in the lineup. The Valencia Rose (and later Josie’s Juice Joint) would provide a venue for gay comedy, fostering the talents of queer and queer-friendly comedians like Marga Gomez, Karen Ripley, Karen Williams, Scott Capurro, Monica Palacios, Lisa Geduldig, Whoopi Goldberg and Orange Is the New Black’s Lea DeLaria, just to name a few.

There was a sensibility to the comedy, entertainment and cabaret environment that the Valencia Rose fostered. Not all the performers were LGBT or queer themselves. Marga Gomez emphasized that “[the Valencia Rose] wasn’t really about who you were as a performer. It’s more like what does our LGBT audience want? Is this respectful to our audience? Is this not racist, not homophobic, not sexist, all those things, because this was an audience that was, uh, very much about intersectionality before we even knew the term.” As a result, there were many comedians, mostly female, who could drift from mainstream clubs and find stage time and audiences at the Valencia Rose. Donald Montwill booked many of the shows. Regarding the curation of stand-up, Gomez went on to add, “His vision [for comedy] was it’s not about who you go to bed with. It’s about your relationship to the status quo. If you’re really a rebel, if you’re really radical, then you know, you’re not putting forth heteronormative structures and edicts…that was the essence.” Montwill, in his own words, summed it up as “I don’t want to run a club where after a night of comedy someone leaves with pain. I want my audience to feel like they are safe from attack for an hour and a half.”

The Valencia Rose closed in late 1985.

jane_dornacker-marga-monica-late-night-fridays

• Reviews • Pull Quotes • Blurbs •

“With all due respect to the revolutionary Stonewallers of New York City, it was at the Valencia Rose and later Josie’s Juice Joint and Cabaret in the Castro that spawned the gayest group of comics.” ~ Karen Williams

“When Ron Lanza and Hank Wilson opened the Valencia Rose in 1982, Tom Ammiano approached them about having a “gay comedy night.” They asked him what gay comedy was. Ammiano admitted, “I don’t know. All I know is I go to straight comedy clubs and I try to be funny and I talk about being gay and they want to eat my liver! I need a place to develop.” • 1982 • Tom Ammiano

Quick Takes

Beginnings

Home Club

Tom Ammiano

Ammiano first started stand-up in the early 1980s when he was forty years old. His first attempt at stand-up was at a local San Francisco open mic, where he was met with homophobic responses from the audience. Homophobia was common in the culture of the 1980s, and the material of many comedians was no exception. Ammiano stood out as one of the few openly gay comedians in the mid-1980s. The hostility from both the audience and the comics kept him from performing in mainstream clubs despite his lifelong love of comedy and his propensity to be funny. Ammiano would go on to help create a home for gay comedy at the Valencia Rose.

Fave Room

Marga Gomez

Originally wanting to be a writer, Gomez became immersed in the alternative art scene in San Francisco and gravitated toward doing open mics around the city. Gomez was openly a lesbian in her personal life but not on stage until she found the Valencia Rose, where all that changed. She discovered that muting herself on stage, along with being uncomfortable in an environment that wasn’t queer and Latino friendly, resulted in her not doing well in many heterosexual comedy venues. “I was sort of dabbling with being in the closet,” Gomez explained, “but then when I went to this place and I did ten minutes at their open mic and for an audience that was out [of the closet] or allies. I realized I don’t want to censor or edit anything about myself. And I discovered that my performance style is very personal. I mean, you know, yes, I’m a lesbian. Yes, I’m Latino, but I’m neurotic first.” Gomez went on to add, “That’s basically how it started. My love of comedy, the influence of my father, and then being in San Francisco at the right time.”

Best Crowd

Take the Stage

Late Night Fridays

Jane Dornacker

Jane Dornacker’s performance persona is just one example of the comedy that embodied the rebellion and radicalism that Gomez talked about. Dornacker easily flowed from mainstream nightclubs to venues like the Valencia Rose. Dornacker was a native of Albuquerque before coming to the Bay Area to attend San Francisco State University. She gravitated to the alternative scenes in San Francisco, first hippie and then punk. Dornacker wrote and performed with the musical group the Tubes. She also led the band Leila and the Snakes as the aforementioned “Leila” before she ventured into comedy. Dornacker was 6'4", redheaded and buxom. Her talent and strong stage presence engaged audiences across many demographics. Her popularity grew when she became the funny traffic reporter for the popular morning radio show on KFRC with Bay Area icon Dr. Donald D. Rose. In fact, she became so accomplished in her role as the traffic reporter that she eventually moved to the larger market in New York, where she was a traffic reporter at WNBC. Tragically, Dornacker died in a helicopter crash while on the job on October 22, 1986.

Friday Night Comedy

February

Gomez went on to national exposure, which included Comic Relief VI, where she was warmly introduced by Robin Williams. She has remained exclusively a comedian and performer but has not always maintained a presence at the more mainstream San Francisco comedy clubs. Instead, she has found an audience in the Latino, feminist and queer communities of San Francisco, as well as toured nationally. Gomez has produced and performed multiple one-woman shows, as well as fostered talents of new comedians by producing showcases at venues like the Marsh in Berkeley and the Brava Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District.