“I found myself immediately immersed in this world that had all the things I loved,” Ginger Marschino reflects, describing her entrance to the world of burlesque. “The campiness of drag, the high glamor of classic movies, the sexiness of exotic dancing.” This neat summation correctly implies the art form’s varied nature; burlesque is many things at once. “There’s no one trajectory for burlesque,” says Kate Beyond, Maraschino’s friend and frequent collaborator. “This art form is not monolithic.”
A bastard child of French and Italian, “burlesque” means “a mockery.” Since the 19th century, the term has described art that subverts or parodies dominant cultural norms. American burlesque skews toward variety performance and spectacle, incorporating elements of cabaret, sideshow performance, drag, vaudeville, and other adjacent forms. It’s bawdy, bold, and typically includes striptease.
Maraschino and Beyond each began performing in the past few years. Maraschino’s first show at Unicorn Bar in Kingston sold out two weeks in advance. The two co-produce shows at Night Swim in Kingston and Darlings Roadhouse in Tillson. These sell out, too, as do their other shows around the region. In the past year, their audience has grown from friends, friends of friends, and other performers to include people far outside their immediate community. Of this, there’s no better evidence than the upcoming Hudson Valley Burlesque Bash, produced by Maraschino at the 450-seat venue Assembly in Kingston on May 17. It’ll be her largest show yet. (In collaboration with the Hudson Valley Burlesque Bash show, Hudson Valley Pole will be hosting open level workshops taught by local and regional performers.)
Beyond and Maraschino are part of a broader swelling of the burlesque scene in the area over the past few years, following a period of stifling dormancy during the pandemic. This impressive resurgence has been enabled in large part by the advent of new venues. Unicorn Bar, Darlings Roadhouse, and Night Swim all opened after the pandemic and have helped bolster the burlesque scene amid its post-Covid rebirth.
But even as burlesque in the Hudson Valley grows, Beyond is quick to deny its novelty. “We’re not the first, and we’re not the only people to do it,” she insists. It’s a question of visibility. “I think there was just kind of a nod and a wink, that you had to know what to look for,” Beyond explains. New performers and venues are two reasons why that’s less the case today; audiences are another.
“There’s magic in live entertainment,” Beyond says, referring to the particular ephemerality of burlesque. It leans on spectacle and an “energy exchange” with the audience; shows are both immersive and unreplicable. Pair that with the inherent subversiveness of an art form associated with (at least partial) nudity and cultural satire, and it’s easy to see why audiences would be drawn to burlesque in a time otherwise defined by political angst. Burlesque offers an escape.
“People want to see live theater and see art, and I do think the boobs have a little bit to do with it.” —Burlesque performer Ginger Maraschino
“We are in unprecedented times,” Maraschino explains. “People want to see live theater and see art, and, I mean, I do think the boobs have a little bit to do with it.” She’s joking, but not really. “Just being a femme and having a body is radical at the moment,” she adds. Burlesque has long found itself at odds with conventional ideas around social respectability, both because of its content and its practitioners, many of whom are queer or otherwise find themselves on the cultural margins. As the liberties of the public are threatened by adverse political forces, many are understandably leaning toward an art form that celebrates inclusion and untempered expression.
Even as burlesque grows, challenges persist. Ginger Maraschino and Kate Beyond are stage names. Both, like most others in their community, have day jobs. Maraschino’s employer knows what she does outside of work—indeed, they’ve seen her perform and have even offered creative suggestions for future shows—but this is an uncommon luxury. “Not everyone has that,” she explains. “That’s why stage names are so important. Because there is, unfortunately, still a lot of stigma.”
Burlesque has always drawn the attention of censors. In the 1940s, through crackdowns on venues, Mayor La Guardia tried his best to run burlesque out of New York City. In some ways, he succeeded, toppling burlesque from its position in the cultural mainstream, but in a larger sense, he failed. Burlesque survived, against all odds, hiding in the shadows, finding purchase in communities on society’s margins. In the 1990s, it boomed again, reinvigorated by performers like Dita Von Teese, who pioneered a neo-burlesque even more provocative than its preceding forms.
This is all to say that history teaches us to bet on burlesque. Whether by cultural conservatives or a global pandemic, it refuses suppression. Today, that resilience is rightfully rewarded by an ever-wider audience for its unapologetic apostles.
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This article appears in May 2025.
