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The show by Playwright, Jill Morley, that attracted the attention of Jodie Foster, Meg Ryan and Universal Studios in the 1990s is heading back to the New York stage.
True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl, a blend of monologues, characters, music, dance and imagery drawn from Morley’s own journey from tomboy to top-ranked bikini dancer, will return to Off-Broadway for a limited 14-performance engagement at The Triad Theatre on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Davin Productions and JP Martin Theatricals, in association with Edmund Gaynes, are behind the revival. Performances begin on Saturday, October 24, 2026, with Opening Night scheduled for Thursday, October 29. The run continues through December 11.
The production is directed by Obie Award-winning Director, Dan Wackerman, with choreography by Choreographer, Jo Weldon, and stars Performance Artist, Jacqueline Frances, in the role originally created by Morley herself.
It is a show that has earned its share of critical attention over the years. Time Out has called the piece “evocative, fully realized, wickedly funny and painfully honest,” while the Village Voice described it as “sharply written” and “poignant.”
A Window Into Pre-Internet Nightlife
The show draws on Morley’s experiences inside the blue-collar go-go bars of northern New Jersey during the 1990s. She has compared it to stepping through the looking glass, only in her version Wonderland was populated by dancers, bouncers and barroom regulars found at spots along the Jersey Turnpike.
Several characters based on real dancers Morley encountered make appearances throughout the piece, alongside her gay male roommate, who helped connect her with her femininity, and the bouncer who taught her how to “hump air.”
Through it all, Morley’s narrative explores how the work affected her personal life and investigates both the rewards and dangers of the go-go business.
For Wackerman, who has been involved with the show since its earlier incarnation in the East Village, the production offers audiences something they cannot find elsewhere.
“True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl captures the fun, excitement and just plain weirdness of night life before the internet and online hook-up culture killed the party,” he remarked. “There’s nothing ‘virtual’ about Jill Morley’s sex-positive account of her life as a stripper in the wilds of northern New Jersey. It’s all too real… and sexy… and hilarious.”
A Cast Drawn From The Worlds Of Dance And Nightlife
Jacqueline Frances takes on the central role for this production. A feminist performer from rural Canada, Frances has performed on comedy and strip club stages around the world. Her credits include writing, starring in and directing Tuesdays With Brian, Suffering in Sun Valley and The Life and Divorce of Jacq the Stripper.
She trained with Clown Instructor, Philippe Gaulier, in Paris and even consulted with Jennifer Lopez on the film Hustlers.
Joining Frances onstage are Dancers and Performers, Andrew Adubsa and Sydney Langford.
Adubsa is a New York-based professional dancer with a background in nightlife and live stage performance. He has appeared as a featured opening act and dancer for Jade Thirlwall and Heidi Montag, performed at the RuPaul’s Drag Race Finale Party at 3 Dollar Bill and appeared at the Mayhem Rave at Ex Fabrica in Mexico City.
His training includes time at UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Ballet, though his style developed through immersive nightlife performance, with credits spanning gogo sets at the Museum of Sex in New York and Miami.
Langford makes her Off-Broadway debut with this production. She spent 15 years living and working in Seoul, South Korea and Sydney, Australia. A queer draglesque performer who also goes by the names Stellar Wynn and Robyn DysPu$$y, her credits include the Lee Seungchul international tour, the Hannibal Buress Australia tour and work as an Instructor and Choreographer for JK Entertainment, as well as various theatre and burlesque productions in Seoul.
Weldon Brings A Personal Connection To The Choreography
Choreographer, Jo Weldon, brings a depth of experience and a personal connection to the project. She is the Founder of The New York School of Burlesque and Author of The Burlesque Handbook, and her choreography credits include work on Gossip Girl, Love and Hip Hop and ChristinaAguilera.com.
Weldon’s connection to the material runs deep. She saw True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl with a group of fellow strippers in the 1990s.
Her own solo show, What I Wore to Work, drew on three decades of experience as an adult entertainer, and her current work explores the intersections of erotic labour, fashion and culture. She can be found at joweldon.com, on Instagram at @headmistressjo and on Substack at joweldon.substack.com.
The creative team also includes Harry Feiner on scenic and lighting design and Vox Populi on costume design.
From The Jersey Turnpike To The Stage
The origins of True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl stretch back more than three decades. In 1993, Morley was a struggling actress who dipped her toe into go-go dancing in New Jersey and found the subculture compelling enough to commit to paper.
The blue-collar go-go bars she frequented provided an awakening of sorts. She would sit and write in the dressing rooms, observing the women she worked with, picking up on their mannerisms and empathising with their stories.
After a couple of years of writing and performing her own material, Morley put True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl on its feet. She self-produced it with the team at the Westbank Cafe, and the show developed a following.
Then Hollywood came calling.
Morley appeared on Page Six, A Current Affair, Donahue and other entertainment shows. She performed the piece at the HBO Workspace in Los Angeles and at solo festivals across the country. The film rights were shopped to Jodie Foster, Meg Ryan, Universal and other studios.
The interest from the film industry faded, however, after Striptease and Showgirls were released and underperformed at the box office.
Morley brought the show back a year later with Wackerman and Kevin Kennedy at The Red Room Theater at KGB in the East Village, where it ran for more than a year.
In 2008, True Confessions was adapted into a Lifetime movie, written by Lenore Kletter.
The show was also published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 1998 by Smith and Kraus.
About The Playwright
Beyond the stage, Morley has built a career as a Screenwriter and Documentary Filmmaker with a focus on character-driven material. Her screenplays have placed in several screenwriting competitions and earned her invitations to the Middlebury Script Lab, Meg LeFauve’s Radical Retreat at Hedgebrook and the Stowe Story Lab.
Her screenplay See Jane Fight was featured on Deadline for making the Women’s List. Her documentaries have appeared on the Sundance Channel, Netflix, Apple TV, Vice and Hulu, as well as at festivals around the world. Her short stories, plays and monologues have been performed across the country and published in several anthologies.
Outside of the entertainment industry, Morley is a USA Boxing Coach and National Golden Gloves Champion. She is currently working on a book about a friend who went missing in 1996.
About The Director
Wackerman is the Artistic Director of The Peccadillo Theater Company. His directing credits for Peccadillo include Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven, Rex Pickett’s Sideways, Thornton Wilder’s A Wilder Christmas and Clifford Odets’ Rocket to the Moon, which received a Drama Desk nomination.
William Inge’s A Loss of Roses was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s picks for the best theatre of 2014. Other Peccadillo credits include Jeffrey Hatcher’s Ten Chimneys, the Schwartz/Fields/Abbott/Smith musical A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which earned an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding Musical Revival, and Elmer Rice’s Counsellor-at-Law, for which Wackerman received an Obie Award for Outstanding Direction and a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival.
His work outside of Peccadillo includes Two Jews, Talking by Emmy Award-winning Writer and Producer, Ed Weinberger, Arrivals by David Gow and Four Cops by Richard Vetere.
Tickets And Performance Details
True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl runs from October 24 through December 11, 2026, at The Triad Theatre (158 West 72nd Street, New York).
Tickets are priced between $69 and $99, with a $25 food and beverage minimum, and can be purchased online or at The Triad Theatre box office one hour before each performance.
The full performance schedule is available at trueconfessionsofagogogirl.com.
More information about Jill Morley and her work can be found at jillmorley.com.
