**Review: *Bunny’s Charm School***
*Written by Susie K. Taylor | Inspired by Bunny Yeager’s 100-Calorie Diet Book | Directed by Kira Simring | Dramaturgy by Ed Christine | Artist Residency at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre, NYC, 2023*
In *Bunny’s Charm School*, Susie K. Taylor invites audiences into the surreal, satirical, and searingly honest world of 1950s pin-up icon Bunny Yeager, offering a playful yet piercing excavation of beauty, identity, and bodily control. Developed during Taylor’s 2023 artist residency at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre in New York City, the piece is inspired by Yeager’s lesser-known book *The 100-Calorie Diet*—a cultural artifact equal parts dieting manual, self-help fantasy, and time capsule of feminine expectation.
Taylor, known for her deeply embodied performance work and unique performance art method, channels Yeager’s voice with ironic reverence, unpacking the contradictory legacy of a woman who photographed power and beauty while internalizing punishing standards of femininity. With dramaturgical support from Ed Christine—Yeager’s real-life manager and gatekeeper of her legacy—the script fuses biographical insight with theatrical invention, resulting in a character study that is both absurd and intimate.
Directed with wit and sharp elegance by Kira Simring, *Bunny’s Charm School* is not a biopic but a deconstructed charm course: a live manual where outdated beauty rules are recited like scripture, only to be dismantled through song, gesture, and raw confession. The production dances at the edge of cabaret, lecture, and performance art, creating a richly layered experience that provokes as much as it delights.
What emerges is not just a portrait of Bunny Yeager but a reflection on all the women who inherited her charm-school curriculum—taught to take up less space while appearing larger than life. Taylor’s performance crackles with vulnerability and knowing humor, offering a necessary reckoning with the cost of being “picture perfect.”
*Bunny’s Charm School* is an invitation into the absurd rituals of female self-making—and an exorcism of them. It is performance art with lipstick, high heels, and a bite.