The NEA Four
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Postcard for Holly Hughes's Preaching to the Perverted, performed at 7 Stages in May 2001. The performance involves reenactments of the U.S. Supreme Court trials throughout the NEA vs. Finley case.
Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, 7 Stages Theatre (Atlanta, Ga.) Records.
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Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of Tim Miller's Some Golden States performed at 7 Stages/Collective Theatre in 1988.
Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, Andrew Wood papers.
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Photo of Tim Miller in his 2000 show Glory Box, which reflects on a lifetime of reactions to gay identity, marriage, and immigration. The show highlights the lack of U.S. federal immigration rights for gay couples and the way this impacted Miller's binational relationship with his Australian partner living in the U.S. on a student visa.
Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, 7 Stages Theatre (Atlanta, Ga.) Records.
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Photo from Tim Miller's 1998 show Shirts and Skin, titled for the division of high school touch football teams into "shirts" and "skins." The show was based on Miller's book of the same name published in 1997.
Courtesy of Georgia State University. Special Collections, 7 Stages Theatre (Atlanta, Ga.) Records.
In June 1990 the performance art world was shaken by the decision of John Frohnmayer, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, to veto grant funding for four artists: Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller. The decision was based on a new congressional “decency clause” that allowed funding denials based on subject matter, and queer subject matter was targeted. Frohnmayer himself noted, before the passage of the decency clause, that “Holly Hughes is a lesbian, and her work is very heavily of that genre. It is very tough stuff””. The four artists filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of the decency clause, initiating a judicial case that would last eight years and a national conversation about censorship. Both Holly Hughes and Tim Miller performed in Atlanta. Miller, in particular, frequented 7 Stages before and after the NEA controversy, bringing to the city his performances Some Golden States (1988), Shirts and Skin (1998), Glory Box (2000), US (2003), and Lay of the Land (2012)—shows that wrestle with issues like marriage equality, immigration rights for same-sex couples, and, of course, censorship.