Margo Stutts Toombs - Performance Artist
  • Home
  • In the beginning...
  • Events: Coming, Going & Gone
    • The Organ-ic Variety Show
    • Texas Poetry Assignment Reading
    • Haunted Holidays
    • Fringe Festival - 2022 Anything Goes
    • WiVLA Showcase Dec 3 2022
    • Storytelling Showcase
    • Synkronicity June Soirée
    • Archway Readings
    • Stormy: The Opera
    • Body Language Screening
    • Writers Re-Treat
    • Houston Fringe Festival
    • S.P.A.C.E a WIVLA Collaboration
    • Acts of Defiance
    • Lake Charles Film & Music Festival
  • Videos
    • Storytelling on the Fringe 2020
    • Videos made on iPhone >
      • Stormy: The Opera Zine
      • 9-11 and Covid-19
      • What is the Virus? Really/
      • Nightmare in Sarajevo
      • WASH
      • Butterfly
      • Mr. Lantana
    • Cinepoems & Music Videos >
      • Ode to My Wound
      • Lazarus Cloth
      • Art Shadow
      • Urban Street Music
      • Stop it Juan - In progress
      • Beat Heart
      • Antidote for the Wicked World We Live In - Version I
      • Let Love Be the Change
      • Hope in My Veins
      • Liz' Song
      • I Don't Need No Estrogen to Have a Good Time
    • Liz Gilbert >
      • Award Presentation
      • Liz Un-Caged
    • Videos with Music & Dancing >
      • Song: C-PAP Tango
      • Ink Dancer
      • Juanita
      • What. This. Is. w/ jhon & Wayne Music
      • Dancing with Art 2017
      • Entanglements
      • donna e perkins - Paper Dance Sculptures
      • Halloween @ Archway Art Gallery
    • Human Interest >
      • Cuba
      • VaCa >
        • Puerto Vallarta
      • A Day at Work
      • Urban Stonehenge
      • Where I'm From
      • Serious Play - UH Senior Art Show
      • Mom's Photo Story
      • Sweet Diana
    • Humorous Videos >
      • Bananas
      • Morning Meditation for Regular People
      • Bitch is Ready for Tea
      • Sidewalk Psychic
      • The Colon Show
      • Wine Tasting with Chocolate
      • Granny Goodnight
      • How I Got Screwed at the Dead Sea Cosmetics Kiosk
      • Hot Tub Doritos - a puppet show w/ chips & crackers
    • Artsy F*rtsy >
      • Mourning Unfurled
      • Body Language
      • Circles in the Wind
      • The Lover's Eye
      • Prisoner of Love
      • On the Town
      • Stormy-M v1
    • Promotional Videos >
      • donna e perkins-Gone Awry
      • Queer State - Promo -1
      • Sizzle for - Stormy: The Opera
      • Sparkle Noir (2015)
      • BLK Gurls ~n~ WHT Boiz
      • The Art of donna e perkins
      • the Art of Johnny Rojas
    • Works in Progress
    • The Weight of Illusions
  • Publications
    • Friendswood Ekphrastic Poetry Contest 2022 >
      • The Comic Bear
      • Gold
    • Poetry & Flash >
      • An All-Night Conversation with You
      • The Care and Feeding of Your Penis Tree
      • Abecedarian: Cowboys at Gilley's
      • The Puzzle of Cats
      • Tommy
      • The Last Flight
      • Paper
      • Love over 60: An Anthology of Women's Poems
      • Batwing
      • Opossum,Oh Please
      • 2011 Texas Poetry Calendar
    • Articles, Blogs & Interviews >
      • Voyage Houston - w/ article & link
      • 100 Creatives
      • Houston 100 Creatives (in PDF form)
      • Radio Interview-Fringe Festival 2011
      • Me Kissing You
      • The Houston Press - Fringe Festival 2012
      • Houston Press Art Attack - Houston Fringe Festival 2012 - PDF
      • Grant Writing Handbook
  • Photos, etc.
    • Kidney Monster
    • Caturday Haiku - 10-11-24
    • Kashmir
    • Photos >
      • Videos played at The Barns 6-21-14
      • Photo in the Houston Press
      • Photos-The Colon Show
      • Photos-What's Eating Martha
    • Glitter, Guts and Glory
    • Redbubble >
      • Bootylicious BD T-shirt
      • Harriet Hair-on-Fire

Picture
My creative journey started in the backyard when I fashioned a head piece for Dale Arden, love interest of Flash Gordon, from a roll of cellophane.

In first grade, I expanded my performance repertoire to include performances of “Green Door,” on the playground.  While the other kids were enjoying their baby tunes, I was drawn to songs that celebrate drinking and smoking.  My performance art evolved into baton twirling and acting in high school and junior college theatre productions. 

After junior college, I was a flight attendant for five years.  I was a great “stew,” except for a few flaws – fear of flying, vertigo, clumsiness, forgetfulness and bad judgment.  And although I seem like a nice person, if any of the planes on which I worked crashed, I would probably have been the first one down the slide.  Just kidding… Or am I?

I took another detour from my first love when I earned a masters degree in language sciences and speech/language pathology. Although helping people with communication disorders is challenging and rewarding, my love of performing laid dormant deep in my heart. 

The course of my life changed in the summer of 2001.  As part of my bucket list, I did a set for open mic night at the Laff Stop in Houston, Texas.  A lot of my friends came to the show to support my madness. Their laughter gave me a false sense of talent.

 After my stand-up comic success, I went on to perform at some cheesy venues and sports bar and some no-name-joint on the side of the Hardy toll road. I was booed and hissed a few times, but I was told that this is the way to earn one’s chops (whatever that means).

 Performing at the Laff Stop started me down a creative path of no return.  A writer friend in the audience that night connected me with Fieldworks Performance Workshops as well as 
donna e. perkins and the Archway Art Gallery Readers.

 Through Fieldworks, I met 
jhon r. stronks, who became my performance collaborator, director, and roommate (also future caregiver?)  Together, we crafted my 60th birthday, one-woman show:  Margo: 60 & Un-censored.

One of the characters in my show, “the diva colon preparing for her day on camera,” was revived for the Houston Fringe Festival in 2009. That same year, I started filmmaking classes at Houston Community College – Spring Branch Campus. 

I used to list places where I have performed and my videos have screened, but that seems like wasted space to me. All you need to know is that I am in my early 70’s and I plan to keep writing, performing and making videos until I am pushing up wild flowers or weeds.
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Thanks for reading this!