Mario Montez

Mario Montez’ loft was on Centre Street near the police station there and very near to both Chinatown and Little Italy. It was where we rehearsed all the plays once we had broken with [John] Vaccaro and until maybe Eunuchs of the Forbidden City. 

Our playroom and fortress, Mario’s loft was equipped with everything one needed it seemed, to forge a disparate group of outsiders into a theater company: it had an aqua shag rug; big, not so comfy couches around the room; a slightly out of tune piano; Mario’s giant bed; a sewing machine; a kitchen; racks and racks of clothes and costumes that Mario continuously worked on; an antique TV set ringed in sequins and glitter; basic music equipment; and hanging from the ceiling, a cheap revolving light fixture that cast marvelous shadows and dreams when at the end of rehearsals we’d lower the lights, take our last drags of marijuana, and listen to the Ronettes sing Christmas music. And the loft had Mario’s famous white cat, White Pussy. 

Mario’s genius was the transformation of found objects into treasures. For instance, he had gotten for some nominal fee or perhaps even for nothing, just thrown away on the street, boxes of fake white rabbit fur which he sewed together into an ermine stole. In his hands and mind, fake rabbit became white ermine, a thrift shop dress became an Edith Head, a Dynel wig became real hair, and a man became a woman. Marilyn Monroe with a Puerto Rican accent.