Penny Arcade (performer)
| Penny Arcade | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Susana Ventura July 15, 1950 New Britain, Connecticut, United States |
| Occupation | Performance artist, playwright |
Penny Arcade (born Susana Carmen Ventura, July 15, 1950), is an American performance artist, actress, and playwright based in New York City.
Susana Ventura was born in New Britain, Connecticut, and grew up in a working class Italian immigrant family. Her mother was abusive and her father was mentally ill. At age 13 she ran away from home and spent a summer homeless in Provincetown. She was sent to Sacred Heart Academy for Wayward Girls, a reform school, where she was released at age 16. With money stolen from a sandwich shop where she worked, she left for New York City, where she changed her name to Penny Arcade after an LSD trip.Jamie Andrews of MainMan management company rescued her off the streets.
Ventura's long association with avant-garde performance began at age 17, when she became a member of John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous. In 1968 she appeared in painter Larry Rivers film T.I.T.S. In 1969 she starred in the Jackie Curtis play Femme Fatale at La MaMa Etc with Curtis, Mary Woronov, Jayne County and Patti Smith, followed by a small role in the Paul Morrisey / Andy Warhol film, Women in Revolt. In 1970 Arcade was featured in her first interview in Rags Magazine, an alternative fashion magazine.
In 1971 Arcade turned down a role in the London production of Andy Warhol's play Pork directed by Anthony Ingrassia and chose instead to join Vaccaro and The Playhouse of the Ridiculous in Amsterdam. After eight months in Amsterdam, she moved to the island of Formentera in Spain's Balearic Islands.
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