Frances Pici
Frances Pici (known as and pronounced as “Peachy”) was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, in a Sicilian Catholic family. She attended the University of Buffalo from 1971 to 1974, and she was a founding member of the Buffalo Women’s Studies College, which at that time was one of only two programs for women’s studies in the country (the second one was at San Diego State, in California). While at Women’s Studies College, Pici also cofounded Stars and Dykes Forever Theater, a group dedicated to expanding lesbian culture and to educating the community about lesbian and feminist issues.
Pici moved to Atlanta in 1974, and she immediately joined the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA), which, at that time, was the first and only out-of-the-closet, lesbian-feminist organization in the country.
Pici also joined the ALFA Omegas, the first, out-of-the closet, Lesbian-Feminist softball team to play in the City of Atlanta leagues. She was age 21 when she and her best friend from college in Buffalo, Mickey Alberts, and some other friends, cofounded Red Dyke Theatre (RDT), a lesbian feminist theatre troupe in Atlanta (active 1974 to 1979).
Pici went to Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, where she focused on several areas of scholarship that continue to be of great interest to her: communication studies, performance studies, and women’s studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in communication and theatre, publishing an honor’s thesis, titled: Citizen Anarchist: A Solo-Bio-Docu-Drama of Emma Goldman. She earned her master’s degree in communication and performance studies, publishing her master’s thesis, titled: Drawn From Life: A Mime Approach to the Theatre of Angna Enters. She also completed all but her dissertation toward a PhD in moving image studies.
After RDT disbanded, in addition to class work and teaching, Pici became a softball umpire with the city of Atlanta, Georgia, and a solo performer as a feminist mime and comic. In 1982, she began working at the CNN Library and CNN dot COM. Since 2008, she has worked at Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) in the Scholarly Communications Office. In 2020, Pici retired and moved back to New York to live the dream with her soul mate and wife of 46 years, Harriett.