Busting Stereotypes

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish. News

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rank and Sheila are in love,
but they're afraid of having
anybody find out. They
meet each other, as if by
chance, in the park. They rent videos
for home viewing instead of going out
to the movies.
The couple, characters in Joan
Lipkin's comic revue Some of My Best
Friends Are ..., represent heterosexuals
in a world where the majority are
homosexuals. They can be seen May
27-June 24 at the Performance
Network in Ann Arbor.
"I've flipped the social reality for
the scenes with Frank and Sheila," says
Lipkin, a Missouri-based. writer, direc-
tor and producer who will be visiting
Michigan as a consultant on her pro-
duction. "This piece is one of the few
I've ever seen that addresses a gay, les-
bian and heterosexual audience in the
same space..
Some of My Best Friends Are ...
mixes comedy, drama and musical
numbers to explore gender issues. The
title is a word play on the phrase that
smacks of discrimination.
"Civil rights for gay, lesbian and
bisexual people is a relatively new
movement," says Lipkin, 44, who uses
theater to mix politics and art. Its an
area where there needs to be a lot of
work done. There's a lot of violence
against gay and lesbian people, and
there's a lot of workplace discrimina-
tion and social stigmatization."
Lipkin, founding artistic director of
That Uppity Theatre Company in St.
Louis, created her revue 10 years ago
to protest Missouri's sexual miscon-
duct law, which prohibits intimate
contact between people of the same
sex. It also marks the 20th anniversary
of the Stonewall Riots, the uprising
that began the gay and lesbian civil
rights movement.
"I often use an issue because it
seems relevant, topical and pertinent
to my thinking as a way to open
things up," says Lipkin. She also has a
commitment to the Disability Project,
a series of workshops that engage the
expression of both disabled and non-
disabled participants collaborating
toward a multidisciplinary theater
piece to be produced by the year
2000.
Lipkin, who grew up in Chicago,

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Joan Lipkin's "Some of My
Best Friends Are ...," opening at
Ann Arbors Performance Network,
explores notions about gender.

"I tried writing and producing on
studied English and art history in col-
the side while I was working, but both
lege but found the subjects of her
things were suffering, so I decided to
degrees too academic.
do the opposite of what my friends
"I needed something that would
were doing. At the
call upon my interests
point that they were
and abilities," explains
ABOVE: Joan Lipkin: "My
the playwright, an artist- Jewish background has had an settling into their
in-residence in the per-
enormous impact on my work. careers and buying
forming arts department It's given me a passion for jus- houses, I went in the
at Washington
tice, a commitment for work- opposite direction and
University. "I've had a
ing on vehicles for change, an took a tremendous
lot of different work
appreciation for both tolerance loss in income to start
environments, and I
and the value of diversity and a theater company. It's
think all the things I've
humor as a wondolitt coping been difficult, but it's
mechanism."
just a blast.
done have contributed
Lipkin, whose work
co the many demands of
has been featured on network television
running a small theater company. I
and produced in other countries, was
was a television producer in public
raised by a psychologist father and
affairs programming, vice president of
social worker mother. She attributes her
an advertising agency and editor of a
interests and social commitments, in
city magazine.

part, to her religious background.
"I function very much as a Jew, by
choice," she says. "My Jewish back-
ground has had an enormous impact
on my work. Its given me a passion
for justice, a commitment for working
on vehicles for change, an appreciation
for both tolerance and the value of
diversity and humor as a wonderful
coping mechanism.
"I think most of my stuff has a
Jewish identity, which seems imbedded
in the fabric of what I do. More overt-
ly, I have a short story about a young
[Jewish] girl trying to pass as Christian
at her Catholic boyfriend's caroling
party published in a book called Nice
Jewish Girls Growing Up in America.
"It's called 'Silent Night,' and this
fall, I adapted it into a film script,
which was just shot by a university.
They're going to send it to festivals."
Lipkin, who is making her first trip
to Michigan, contributed to a book
published by the University of
Michigan Press — Upstaging Big
Daddy: Directing Theater As If Race
and Gender Matter.
Although Lipkin has created many
theater pieces about sexual orientation,
she declines to comment on her own.
"I don't tend to identify myself in .
any public way," she says. "I try to let
my work speak for itself. If I were to
say that I'm heterosexual, then the
question would be, 'Why is a hetero-
sexual woman interested in writing
about this stuff?' If I were to say I was
a lesbian, then people would feel I
have an agenda.
"If I say one thing or the other, I
think it constructs the way people look
at [each production]. I want people to
come to this without any expectation
of who I am. I want them to have their
own experience with this." ❑

Some of My Best Friends Are ...,
by Joan Lipkin, with music and
lyrics by Tom Clear, will be per-
formed 8 p.m. Thursdays-
Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays,
May 28-30 and June 7-10, 14-
17 and 21-24 at the
Performance Network, 408 W
Washington, Ann Arbor.
$15/$12 students and
seniors/pay-what-you-can
Thursdays. (734) 663-0681.