Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration

April 12, 2026 PURCHASE TICKETS HERE  Doors 7pm/ Show 8pm Ages: 12+ John Waters (Writer/Director) Born in Baltimore, MD in 1946, John Waters was drawn to movies at an early age, particularly exploitation movies with lurid ad campaigns. He subscribed to Variety at the age of twelve, absorbing the magazine’s factual information and its lexicon of insider lingo. This early education would prove useful as the future director began his career giving puppet shows for children’s birthday parties. As a teenager, Waters began making 8-mm underground movies influenced by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Walt Disney, Andy Warhol, Russ Meyer, Ingmar Bergman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis. Using Baltimore, which he fondly dubbed the “Hairdo Capitol of the World,” as the setting for all his films, Waters assembled a cast of ensemble players, mostly native Baltimoreans, and friends of long standing: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole and Edith Massey. Waters also established lasting relationships with key production people, such as production designer Vincent Peranio, costume designer Van Smith, and casting director Pat Moran, helping to give his films that trademark Waters “look.” Waters made his first film, an 8-mm short, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket in 1964, starring Mary Vivian Pearce. Waters followed with Roman Candles in 1967, the first of his films to star Divine and Mink Stole. In 1968, he made his first 16-mm film with Eat Your Makeup, the story of a deranged governess and her lover who kidnap fashion models and force them to model themselves to death. Mondo Trasho, Waters’ first feature length film, was completed in 1969 despite the fact that the production ground to a halt when the director and two actors were arrested for “participating in a misdemeanor, to wit: indecent exposure.” In 1970, Waters completed what he described as his first “celluloid atrocity,” Multiple Maniacs. The film told the story of Lady Divine and her lover, Mr. David, proprietors of a freak show who lure unsuspecting suburbanites into their tents to witness “The Cavalcade of Perversions.”  In 1972 Waters created what would become the most “notorious” film in the American independent cinema of the 1970’s, Pink Flamingos. Centered on the great battle to secure the title “Filthiest People Alive,” Pink Flamingos pitted Divine’s Babs Johnson against Mink Stole and David Lochary’s truly evil Connie and Raymond Marble, while turning Waters into a cult celebrity. Pink Flamingos went on to become a smash success at midnight screenings in the U.S. and all over the world. Pink Flamingos, called “a paragon of bad taste” by the Museum of Modern Art, was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, one of only 25 films earmarked in 2021 year for preservation “as works of enduring importance to American culture.”  Waters followed the success of Pink Flamingos with three more pictures, spanning the remainder of the decade. In 1974 he created Female ...