‘Dad, Playboy & Me’
Norwalk storyteller finds inspiration in her father’s photos for performance piece
NORWALK — The random discovery of her late father’s unique photographic work has led a local woman to travel a new personal path lit by burgeoning opportunities for healing and artistry.
Norwalk resident A.G. Norton’s new performance piece — entitled “Dad, Playboy & Me ... Not Your Average Slideshow” — is a dynamic storyteller’s odyssey exploring her family’s connection to a Playboy Club in the 1970s, classic photography by her father and grandfather, and her own discoveries about the dad she lost at age 16.
Norton, a social worker, previously worked with the nonprofit Grassroots Tennis & Education in Norwalk, which followed 15 years of helping at-risk young people in London’s East End.
Growing up in West Milford, N.J., Norton knew her father, Chris “Kip” Norton, to be an amateur photographer. But when she came into possession of more than 10,000 of his photos near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she discovered a collection that included 600 unique images from the family’s many visits to the Great
Gorge Playboy Club in Vernon, N.J., over a 10-year period.
“He always had a camera on him, so I knew that he took pictures. But he died when I was 16, so a lot of the pictures that he took and developed were before I was born,” said Norton, who is performing her show in Germany and the United Kingdom over the next two months.
In an hourlong talk before audiences, Norton paints a picture of her father as a good-humored man.
An engineer by trade, he made many visits to the resort club, always accompanied by his wife and some of his six children. They dined and mingled with the staff of “bunnies” — the iconic female workers with the Playboy brand who wore revealing costumes complete with rabbit ears and cottontails.
“It was a very funny experience to have the series of the Playboy bunnies amongst
all of these family moments,” Norton said. “But I was very intrigued by the pictures of the Playboy bunnies for a lot of reasons.”
After a revealing A&E documentary series last year called “Secrets of Playboy,” which brought new realism to the images of the Playboy brand, Norton was intrigued to take a closer look at the photos from a feminist perspective.
“I really just wanted to find the women who were in the photos and kind of hear their stories and connect them with the pictures,” she said.
She said she has managed to get in touch with several women in the pictures, who shared their experiences of working at the club, including one who remembered her parents as nice people. ‘Catharsis,’ ‘creativity’ and ‘healing’
Looking into the roots of her father’s aspirations as a photographer, Norton discovered that her grandfather, Charlie Norton, had studied photography at The New School under Berenice Abbott, a legendary photographer who was a trailblazing lesbian in the 1930s. As well as capturing many iconic images of New York City, she was a protege of Man Ray’s while in Paris, and a friend to Eugene Aget, whose work she later helped publicize after his death.
As a consequence of this research, A.G. Norton has begun embracing her own identity as an artist, using this storytelling show as a jumping-off point.
“I have found a voice as an artist myself,” she said.
In that spirit, Norton is pleased to bring this medium of storytelling to an in-person audience. It’s the kind of experience that society is sorely missing, not only after the pandemic but also due to its full-on embrace of cell phones and online interaction, she said.
“I really see storytelling as what kept our species alive around a campfire, (so) I want to bring back slide shows,” she said. “I want to have people come off their phone and gather ... and bring that kind of in-person connection into a regular space.”
“It was a very funny experience to have the series of the Playboy bunnies amongst all of these family moments. But I was very intrigued by the pictures of the Playboy bunnies for a lot of reasons ... I really just wanted to find the women who were in the photos and kind of hear their stories and connect them with the pictures.” A.G. Norton
Locally, Norton has twice performed at Eco Evolution at 135 Washington St. and hopes to do so again upon her return to the U.S. in the spring.
“We need to be doing more of this as a society and as a culture,” she said, as opposed to experiences that are “recorded and edited and filtered and distilled and perfected.”
Her mother, Belinda Norton, noted that her father would be proud of both her and her show.
“Chris would be so pleased that people are enjoying his photography,” she said, noting that she supported his pursuit as an artist back then.
“He took many photos,” she said. “Black and white, as well as color. He developed his blackand-white negatives in our pantry dark room.”
A.G. Norton said her show continues to change and evolve each time she does it, with different audiences bringing different reactions.
“What I’m trying to also do is create an intimacy in the audience, in sharing my story and being vulnerable,” she said, “so that people find that there’s some healing they can apply to their own lives.”
For herself, she’s watched her view of her late father go from one of sadness and pity for her own loss and his short life, to one of celebration brought about by the photographic evidence she continues to uncover amidst the thousands of pictures she still hasn’t scanned.
“This has been a healing journey for me ... There was just so much joy in all of the photos that he took and the moments that he shared,” Norton said.
“I realize that he lived a life complete and I need to hold nothing other than joy for him and the incarnation that he experienced,” she said.
“It’s about catharsis ... creativity and healing,” she said. Prints of Chris Norton’s work are on display and available for purchase at the Fairfield County Antique & Design Center at 39 Knight St. in Norwalk. For more information, visit www.fairfieldantique anddesign.com/.