Jude Alderson is a writer, composer, performer and director who has a background in physical theatre, including as a trapeze artist and worked with Steven Berkoff and Triple Action Group among others. She went on to set up the feminist theatre / cabaret company and band Sadista Sisters who toured all over Europe becoming known for their distinctive punk style, ‘in-yer-face’ theatre before the term was invented. Her plays for Sadistas and others, include Red Door Without a Bolt, Duchess, Madonna in Slag City, Belonging, Rachel and the Roarettes (for television) The Virgin’s Revenge and Charity. Her new company is Amazonia Music Theatre Company with whom she has devised the cabaret play Entartete Musik.
Interview extracts:
Sadista Sisters
‘Sadista Sisters? Yeah, well, it happened very fast for us. My acting agent just thought we were great, we did some sort of trial thing and some sort of audition somewhere, and bang, we got a West End show, and then a record company was interested, they thought we were really wild. But it sort of backfired in so far as that the record company then wanted male musicians. At this point we were then nine, all women, woman sax player, quite a few single parents, most of the women were from the working class. I don’t know how consciously, I don’t know if it was conscious, but you know, there was a very strong oppositional element in the company. But they didn’t like it, they turned it down, they got professional male musicians.’
Working with Steven Berkoff in the London Theatre Group
Sadista Sisters first show at the Hard Rock Cafe
Video Transcript
Detailed Topics List of those covered in the interview
See Viewing Interviews for details of where to view the whole interview
Bibliography:
See Biography for list of plays (all unpublished)
Record: The Sadista Sisters (Transatlantic Records 1976)
See www.amazonianmusictheatre.com