Alvin Orloff and Michael Collins papers, 1986-2011.
Collection Number: 7789

Alvin Orloff played a major role in the Popstitutes, an influential San Francisco queer performance group and punk band founded in 1986 by Michael Collins ("Diet Popstitute"), Brad Kellogg ("Bad Popstitute"), and Orloff ("Remix von Popstitute"). He was also important in Playstitute, a production company that brought genderbending and avant-garde plays and musicals to established theatrical spaces in San Francisco, and Klubstitute, a long-running weekly club that featured underground queer performance in a variety of genres. Orloff also served as an impresario and DJ at Baby Judy's, a queer dance club held weekly in San Francisco's Mission District from 1994 to 1996. Michael Joseph Collins, aka Diet Popstitute, was a performance artist, musician, theater producer, and club entrepreneur. Born in 1958, he died in 1995 at the age of 37. In the late 70s, Diet moved to San Francisco and became known in the Punk Rock scene. He wrote poetry, which later developed into his song lyrics. In 1986, he co-founded the musical and queer performance art group The Popstitutues with Alvin Orloff, aka Remix von Popstitute, and Brad Kellogg, aka Bad Popstitute. Stage shows featured choreographed dances, costumes, and props, and promoted The Popstitutes belief in sexual liberation and self expression. While such shows were message-driven comedy, The Popstitutes musical style was impossible to categorize. In 1990, The Popstitues opened Klubstitute, a floating queer oriented nightclub and cabaret. Diet kept the tone of the club playful and yet avant garde, as the M.C. and booker. Because of Diet's generosity in allowing anyone to perform, Klubstitute became known as a breeding ground for new talent, as well as a space in which anyone of any sexual orientation could go to have some fun. In 1992, Diet founded Playstitute, a queer oriented theater production company. He died in 1995 of AIDS. Orloff, aka Remix, inherited Diet's unpublished scripts, lyrics, performance notes, and personal notebooks, which are included in the collection. Remaining active in San Francisco's cultural life, Remix has since published three novels, 'I Married an Earthling' (2000), 'Gutterboys' (2004), and 'Why Aren't You Smiling?' (2011) through Manic D Press.

Manuscripts, ephemera, photographs, posters, clippings, and other materials documenting the queer punk, performance and club scenes in San Francisco from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, at a time when AIDS was devastating the city's gay population and when the activist groups ACT UP and Queer Nation emerged in response to the epidemic. The papers focus on the Popstitutes and the many other initiatives by Collins and other group members and associates in the following decade, including Playstitute and Klubstitute. The personal collection of manuscripts, ephemera, posters, photographs and other materials documenting the groundbreaking queer punk, performance and club scenes in San Francisco from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, at a time when AIDS was devastating the city's gay population and when the activist groups ACT UP and Queer Nation emerged in response to the epidemic. With more than 425 leaves of typescripts and manuscripts and more than 900 items of ephemera and related materials, the collection offers rich primary sources for research in cultural studies, gender studies, queer studies, contemporary history, theater history, art history and related disciplines. The papers focus on The Popstitutes - a seminal San Francisco queer performance group and punk band founded in 1986 by Michael Collins ("Diet Popstitute," 1958-1995); Brad Kellogg ("Bad Popstitute"); and Alvin Orloff ("Remix von Popstitute")-and on the dizzying array of activities spawned by Collins and the other members and associates of the group in the decade that followed.

Alvin Orloff and Michael Collins papers, #7789. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.