Fittingly, one of the Living Theatre’s workers, Peter Crowley, spent time there well over a decade before he began booking the Ramones, Blondie, and other punk bands at Max’s Kansas City. In both venues, he witnessed the dissolution of barriers that separated audiences from performers. After running away at the age of seventeen to join the circus (literally: Crowley worked for Clyde Beatty–Cole Bros. as a sideshow laborer), he moved to New York in 1959 and got involved with the Committee for Non-Violent Action. Crowley met Malina and Beck at a demonstration and began working in the theater’s lobby and bookshop, taking acting classes on the side. “The Living Theatre’s involvement with the peace movement was an attraction, and the plays themselves were fascinating,” he said. “They did The Connection and The Brig, those are the two famous ones.”

From Chapter 2 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore