- Collection:
- LGBTQ Collection
- Title:
- Frances Pici oral history interview, 2014-06-07
- Creator:
- Pici, Frances
- Contributor to Resource:
- Fontana, Lorraine
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2014-06-07
- Subject:
- Lesbian feminism
Lesbians--Identity
Lesbian Theater
Softball teams
Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance
Red Dyke Theatre - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, 33.79025, -84.46702
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
United States, New York, Erie County, Buffalo, 42.88645, -78.87837 - Medium:
- oral histories (literary works)
interviews - Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Frances Anne Pici was born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y. After high school Pici enrolled in college at the University of Buffalo in 1971. During that time, U.B. was a very activist university and home to the newly created Buffalo Women’s Studies College, which was one of only two Women’s Studies Programs in the country. In 1974, Pici moved to Atlanta and immediately joined ALFA (Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance), which, at that time, was the first and only out of the closet lesbian-feminist organization in the country. She also joined the ALFA Omegas, the first out of the closet Lesbian Feminist softball team to play in the City of Atlanta leagues. From 1974-1979 Pici was one of the founding mothers of Red Dyke Theatre (RDT), a lesbian feminist theater troupe. After RDT disbanded, Pici became a City of Atlanta softball umpire, and also went on to perform solo as a feminist mime and comic. In 1982, Pici began her career at CNN in the CNN Library and in 1994 was part of the team who created and deployed cnn.com. Pici received all of her college degrees from Georgia State University, including a B.A. in Communication/Theatre, an M.A. in Communication/Performance Studies, and an ABD Ph.D. in Moving Image Studies. In 2008, Pici started a new career at Emory University working in Woodruff Library’s Access Services, managing the Music and Media Library and is currently the Open Access Repository Analyst in the Library’s Scholarly Communication Office.
In this interview, Frances Pici describes her upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y. as the only daughter in an Italian Catholic family. She discusses the emergence of her lesbian feminist identity, which began during her undergraduate studies at the University of Buffalo. Pici talks about moving from Buffalo to Atlanta in the 1970s, when she joined ALFA (Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance) and the ALFA Omegas, the first openly lesbian softball team in the city of Atlanta's softball league. Pici describes the experiences she had living in a lesbian collective house in Atlanta, including the interpersonal relationships and dynamics that were part of the group. Many of the women in the collective were artistic and creative, and they eventually formed the Red Dyke Theatre, an irreverent and unconventional lesbian theater troupe. Pici details her experiences with Red Dyke Theatre and with the Southeastern Arts Media and Education Project (SAME), a multi-disciplinary gay and lesbian arts education nonprofit. Pici talks briefly about working at CNN and at Emory University, and discusses her feelings about aging. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/lgbtq/id/4769
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/lgbtq:4769/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Copyright to this item is owned by Georgia State University Library. Georgia State University Library has made this item available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more information, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Bibliographic Citation (Cite As):
- Cite as: Pici, Frances, interviewed by Lorraine Fontana, June 7, 2014, Gender and Sexuality Oral History Project, Archives for Gender and Sexuality. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University.
- Extent:
- 01:19:09
- Original Collection:
- Gender and Sexuality Oral History Project
http://research.library.gsu.edu/gender_sexuality
Archives for Gender and Sexuality - Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
