warthog, defines his costuming as a
challenge but not difficult.
“Pumbaa is portrayed with a
bunraku puppet, a Japanese style in
which people see the puppet and
the puppeteer,” he explains. “The
two performances blend into a sin-
gle performance so people are not
sure what part of this double event
they’re watching.” The concept was
created by visionary director and
designer Julie Taymor.
“It’s a skill that requires enormous
focus, rehearsal and attention to
detail in order to make the puppet
seem alive so that audiences are
not paying attention to me but to
my performance and the puppet,”
Lipitz says. “I’ve never been in a pro-
duction where costuming designs
and the mechanics involved are so
elaborate.”
Portraying a comic Jewish rein-
deer as a third-grade New Jersey
student sealed Lipitz’s career choice
as a character actor. He doesn’t
remember the joke he told, but he
does remember the resulting audi-
ence laughter and the motivation
that brought.
“My first paying job in acting was
in staged readings during my senior
year in high school,” says Lipitz,
who earned a bachelor’s degree
from the California Institute of the
Arts and did graduate work at Yale
University.
Stage credits include regional
productions of Red, Hot and Blue,
Just So and Dirty Blonde. On TV, he
has been seen in The Sopranos, Law
& Order and Homicide. Film appear-
ances were in The Giraffe and Find
Me Guilty.
“I got to work with Eli Wallach
in a Broadway play, Memories of a
Bintel Brief, based on letters about

— Danny Raskin

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the immigration experience written
to the Jewish Daily Forward during
the 1930s and 1940s,” he recalls.
“I’ve also worked with the Jewish
Theater of New York playing an
ultra-Orthodox rabbi conflicted
with personal issues. In Laughter on
the 23rd Floor for regional theater, I
played Ira Stone, a character based
on Mel Brooks.
“My Jewish heritage informed
those Jewish characters, but I think
my Jewish heritage and identity
inform everything I do, whether a
Jewish character or not.”
Lipitz, who met his wife while
both were appearing in a European
production of West Side Story, uses
off-time on the road to produce
benefits to fight AIDS; that event
count is about 60. During earlier
Detroit appearances in Lion King, he
has worked with AIDS Partnership
Michigan to produce localized fun-
draisers.
Now living just outside New York
City, Lipitz often returns to his
home state in support of the Jewish
Federation of Southern New Jersey.
A night of singing supports special
needs programming, including day
camp services.
“Every year, I produce, direct and
perform for that benefit,” he says.
“It’s called Broadway Live. I get
about a dozen of my friends in cur-
rent Broadway shows, and we pull
together a six-piece band.
“We raise nearly half a million
dollars in a single night, and we’ll
be in our seventh or eighth year in
June. It’s something that I look for-
ward to. I still maintain deep con-
nections with the Jewish commu-
nity in the town, Cherry Hill, where
I was raised, and I will never not be
part of that city.” •

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January 26 • 2017

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