Hattie Hathaway’s magnifi cent memorial
BY BOB KRASNER
On April 1, Hattie Hathaway received
a memorial so wonderful
that it was possible to be jealous
of a dead man.
More than 200 friends and colleagues
of the recently deceased Brian Butterick
a.k.a. Hattie danced and twirled their
parasols behind a New Orleans-style
marching band. They wended their way
from Tompkins Square Park to the La
MaMa Theatre, on E. Fourth St., stopping
traffi c and onlookers along the
way.
Dressed in funeral drag ranging
from the sublime to the ridiculous, the
group’s joyous march was a most-fi tting
tribute to a well-loved member of the
community.
The evening was organized by the
Howl! Happening gallery, where Hattie
was a member of the board and a
longtime friend. Jane Friedman, Howl!
founder and executive director, said the
idea was to have a large-scale participatory
memorial, and that Butterick merited
it.
“He was a very important fi gure in
the community, especially in theater
arts,” she said. “We wanted to give everyone
a chance to participate in his memorial
— to show up and show off and
be fabulous! What better way to do it
than a parade?”
Miss Debra Raffl es Trizzini, a friend
for more than a decade, marveled at the
“magnitude of people, the
love and the fervent
respect for our
a m a z i n g
Hattie Hathaway buttons provided by Howl! were sported by a parasoltoting
member of the New Orleans-style procession.
wild Hattie!”
“I was overwhelmed with joy, sadness,
honor and grief,” she said. “It was
all so beautiful and perfect.”
Once inside La MaMa, Chi Chi Valenti
took the role of emcee, presenting
a mix of reminiscence, poetry, music
and performance art to a
packed house in celebration
of what
she called
“an incredible
life.”
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Howl! Director Ted Riederer started
the evening off, by noting that Hattie
“had a rare and special gift for making
art and music out of chaos.”
“Howl! will never be the same,” he
declared.
When it was all over, he looked
around and summed up the event perfectly:
“That,” he declared, “was epic.”
Tabboo performed a tribute accompanied
by Agosto Machado and Gail
Thacker. Penny Arcade, Kestutis Nakas
and Jennifer Blowdryer shared their
memories to rousing applause.
Doug Bressler and Julie Hair, two of
the remaining members of the band 3
Teens Kill 4 — founded by Hattie and
David Wojnarowicz — performed a
heartbreakingly beautiful version of a
song titled “Alchohol,” with a chorus
that went, simply, “When I lost you, I
lost everything.”
During a break, a slide show put together
by Aldo Hernandez played. Afterward,
Paul Alexander took over as
host to present Flloyd, Hapi Phace,
Eileen Dover and the band
NYOBS (Peter Cramer, Jack
Waters, John Swartz and
Mike Cacciatore). Together,
they brought
back the spirit of the
Pyramid, when Hattie
was the Avenue
A club’s manager.
Friend and wig
designer Torin
imagined Hattie in
the afterlife.
“Hattie is in heaven,
hanging out with
his favorite celebs and
taking down the ‘No
Smoking’ signs from
the celestial rest stops,”
he mused.
A longtime neighbor, Marjan
Moghaddam, remarked
of the fabulous parade, “Leave it
to Hattie to disrupt traffi c in the middle
of the gentrifi ed East Village!”
Poison Eve of Blacklips ended the memorial’s
part two with a striking performance.
Opening the last section, Heather Litteer
— the artist formerly known as Jessica
Rabbit Domination — read her tribute
from the back of a loaf of challah.
“Hattie taught me to tape my lines to
a piece of bread, so that I wouldn’t have
to study my lines so much,” she said.
The deceased was, she remarked, “family,
friend and father” to her.
Memories shared by Needles Jones,
Wendy Kaplan and a song performed
by Rafael and Eddie Sanchez rounded
out the evening. Tennessee, speaking
last, recited a “Top 10” list of the best
things about Hattie, which included his
fearlessness, knowledge of history, great
creativity and the time Hattie kicked
David Lee Roth off the stage.
Before DJ Johnny Dynell cued up the
exit music, there were several attempts
to run a clip of Hattie performing a
death scene. When the clip refused to
play for the third or fourth time someone
yelled, “Hattie will never die!” They
got that right.
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Written & D irected by
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PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Heather Litteer noted that Hattie taught her to put her lines on bread,
so she attached her speech to a piece of challah.
Schneps Media TVG April 11, 2019 27
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