Deanne Taylor

Deanne Elizabeth Taylor (November 24, 1946 – December 15, 2020) was an avant garde artist, director, producer, actor, playwright, filmmaker and performance artist in Toronto, best known for co-founding the satirical Queen Street West cabaret group, the Hummer Sisters in the 1970s and 1980s, and for co-founding VideoCabaret. In 1982, she briefly changed her name to A. Hummer to enable the Hummer Sisters to run collectively for mayor of Toronto (though with only Taylor's assumed name on the ballot) against incumbent Art Eggleton under the slogan "ART vs Art"; coming in second place in the 1982 mayoral election, with 12,000 votes.[1]

During the campaign, which cost a total of $3,000 and featured nightly political cabarets at the Cameron House, the Hummer Sisters told the media that being mayor was “no job for politicians” and held a penny-a-plate fundraiser to cover their costs, and counter a $150-a-plate fundraiser held by Eggleton.[1]

Taylor was born in Berkeley, California to Violet Mae and Malcolm Gordon Taylor, who were living in California while Malcolm Taylor was a doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley.[1]

She grew up across Canada, as her father moved frequently during his academic career. While in Toronto, at the age of 9, she took dance lessons from a neighbour who worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - a connection that led her to be cast as the title character in the CBC Television series Maggie Muggins - the second of three girls to play the part during the run of the series.[2][1]

In 1960, she moved to Calgary when her father was appointed principal of what became the University of Calgary. After graduating from high school she studied at the University of British Columbia for a year before moving to Europe for a gap year which became seven years of travels that included a stints living in Morocco and India as well as London during the swinging sixties, becoming part of "Swinging London"'s counterculture and studying at the London School of Film Technique. She founded London's first repertory film house,[3] the Electric Cinema, with Roger Cross and John McWilliams, an avant garde late-night film series that became a permanent repertory cinema. She hosted Jean-Luc Godard when screening One Plus One and had a small part in Godard's documentary British Sounds (See You at Mao), on the status of women under capitalism, in which she walked up and down a staircase in the nude.[1]

Taylor returned to Canada, settling in Toronto, and joined with Marni Jackson and eight other women to form the "Women & Film" collective. The group organized the first international festival of films made by women, at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in 1973.[2] The series went on to tour the country.[1]

Taylor was best known for being part of the Queen Street West arts scene in the 1970s and 1980s, co-founding the Hummer Sisters in 1974. In 1976, she co-founded the experimental theatrical company, VideoCabaret, with Michael Hollingsworth.[1][2]

The Hummer Sisters performed topical satire in galleries and bars alongside live bands and stacks of television monitors presenting live and recorded video. Written in collaboration with Hollingsworth, Hummer Sisters/VideoCabaret shows included The Patty Rehearst Show (riffing off of Patty Hearst) and The Bible as Told to Karen Ann Quinlan, Nympho Warrior and Where's Fluffy, Hollingsworth's Punc Rok and Electric Eye, and adaptations of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.[1]

The troupe performed The Patty Rehearst Story and Electric Eye Off-Broadway in New York City in 1978. While staying with Hollingsworth at the Chelsea Hotel, the two began a relationship that lasted until Taylor's death, with the two marrying in July 2021.[1]

In 1989, Taylor and Hollingsworth co-created the VideoCabaret production of Rigoletto, a rock adaptation of Verdi's opera for which they won the Dora Mavor Moore Award. She also wrote and staged 2nd Nature, a hit musical featuring an all-female cast playing reproductive organs.[1]

From 1985 to 1994, Taylor produced and directed and co-wrote Hollingworth's epic historical play cycle, The History of the Village of the Small Huts, a satirical retelling of Canadian history in eight parts over 21 plays staged in venues ranging from alternative theatres to the Stratford Festival, and was more recently remounted at Soulpepper. The cycle was followed by a four-play sequel, The Global Village.[4][1][2]

Taylor died on December 15, 2020, of cancer, at the age of 74.[2]