Squeezebox! (2008)

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In the mid-1990's, when Rudy Guiliani took over as mayor of New York City, he began a campaign to clean up the city, shutting down many of New York's sex clubs and wilder nightspots while turning the Times Square area into a Disney-friendly tourist destination. However, not every New Yorker was happy about the heavy hand being put upon the city's libertine community (especially given the cleanup's emphasis on gay clubs), and Michael Schmidt, a Big Apple party promoter, began staging regular parties at a Tribeca club called Don Hill's as an act of defiance against the new PG-rated New York. "Squeezebox" was originally intended to be a night where drag queens would give up lip-synching to records for the night and belt out their favorite tunes to the accompaniment of a rock band, but in time it grew into an "anything goes" showcase in which gays, straights, punks and club kids mingled in a party that celebrated freedom and self-expression for all as well as a wild good time. John Cameron Mitchell's acclaimed show Hedwig and the Angry Inch began as a workshop production at Squeezebox, and performers who graced the Squeezebox stage included Deborah Harry, Boy George, Jayne County and Antony Hegarty (who would later gain fame with his group Antony and the Johnsons). Filmmakers Steve Saporito, Zach Shaffer and Sean Pierce tell the story behind New York's wildest party and talk to a number of the people who made it possible in the documentary SqueezeBox, which received its world premiere as a special Midnight attraction at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi