For two and half years in the early 1970s, the Cockettes, a unique and flamboyant theater troupe, delighted San Francisco with their casual nudity, outrageous sense of humor, and glittering, genderfuck drag. Their "Noctural Dream Shows" brought the counter-culture lifestyle of Haight-Ashbury and the gender politics of Gay Liberation to an enthusiastic audience. Gay activist John Francis Hunter called them "an expression of the essence of the Sexual Revolution." Founded on New Year's Eve 1969/70, The Cockettes were centered around a Haight Street commune and usually performed their Friday midnight shows at the Palace Theater, a Chinese language movie house in North Beach.

Their productions were a combination musical comedy, agit-prop street theater, and drag show; theatrical pageants of costume and improvisation. Titles included "Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma," "Hell's Harlots," "Hollywood Babylon,” and "Elephant Shit: The Circus Life.” At one notable performance, a benefit for the city V.D. clinic, entitled "The Cockettes in Clapland," the Cockettes wore giant papier-mâché phallus costumes and squirted each other with whipped cream. Such performances assured the Cockettes attention. National magazines such as Rolling Stone ran feature articles on them. Truman Capote and Rex Reed attended their shows. They made their first film, Tricia’s Wedding (1971), which viciously satires the Nixon family. Encouraged by their local success, the Cockettes went on tour in late 1971. Their November premiere in Manhattan however was a disaster, and soon after their return to California the group disbanded.

The Cockettes' influence outlasted their short careers. Their style and sensibility helped popularize the "unisex" look of the decade. Their androgynous image was embraced by performers such as David Bowie and the New York Dolls to promote glitter rock and bisexual chic. Even contemporary gender benders such as Boy George and Annie Lennox owe much to the Cockettes’ inspiration. Frameline and the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project are proud to present the Cockettes for the audiences of the '80s.