COVER STORY .

Anna Frangiosa

Burlesque dancer / Stripper


	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Aug 19, 2009

Neal Santos

I can't find Anna Frangiosa at the coffee shop where we're supposed to meet. My only point of reference is a picture that once ran in City Paper, featuring Frangiosa sitting regally decked out in a curled white wig, a short corseted dress and garters — like a saucy Marie Antoinette. But that's not Frangiosa. It's Annie A-Bomb, founder of Revival Burlesque and co-founder of Cabaret Red Light. But she has yet another persona that the black tank, rectangular glasses and knee-length skirt she's wearing today betray: Frangiosa, 33, is also a stripper. She won't reveal what club she works for or how much she generally makes (at one point, she lets slip that she takes home more than $100 per five-hour shift, but I figure it's over that). While it's perhaps for her own safety — although she says she can deal with the surprisingly small "icky parts" of her job — it may also be in order to keep these aspects of her life separated. When she's sitting in a coffee shop, she's Anna Frangiosa. Onstage, in either capacity, she's someone else entirely.

It's a misconception that Frangiosa's two professions are similar in nature. Stripping is simply about skin. Frangiosa prefers her burlesque satirical and politically conscious and is trying to distance Revival and Cabaret Red Light from simple strips. She says stripping accounts for only about one-fifth of the average Cabaret Red Light performance.

Frangiosa became interested in burlesque through the old movies she watched because her parents were too strict to let her watch current cinema. They recently Googled her and found a video of her onstage. They freaked but are dealing. She started performing with the Peek-A-Boo Revue in 1998 but left in 2005. In 2003, she opened a Passyunk Avenue boutique called Ballroom to Bedroom. "When that store closed [in 2005] I was pretty much like, 'Fuck this.' And I became a stripper," Frangiosa says. She's been stripping, mostly at the same club, for three years, even though at first it was only temporary. "I came into it thinking that I was going to make some money and take a trip for six months and then I got wrapped up in the burlesque shit," Frangiosa says, laughing. In 2007, Walking Fish Theatre asked her to put on a monthly show and Revival Burlesque was born.

While she says she makes OK money as a stripper, it's not a huge payday. Like most clubs, Frangiosa works entirely for tips, with the club taking a cut of her earnings. Because of the recession, customers are less willing to drop large amounts of cash. Still, the schedule is hard to beat. She dances at the club about three shifts a week. "I thought, this is great, I can work a couple nights a week and have all this time to do all this other creative stuff," says Frangiosa. "In a very short time I've been able to accomplish a lot."

Cabaret Red Light presents The 7 Deadly Sins, Fri., Nov. 13, 10:30 p.m., $15, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St., 215-735-0630, cabaretredlight.com.