PHOTO COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES.
© 2017 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
elements of acrobatics, tap dance,
hip-hop and stunts.
“I’m a pretty positive person
inspired and fueled by music and
musicals,” says Lipitz, who thought
of being a performer before pursu-
ing creative experiences behind the
scenes. “I also have a lot of empa-
thy. My grandmother had a saying,
which is ‘one heart fills another,’ and
I certainly try to live by that.
“The girls have become a part of
my life and like family to me. I can’t
imagine my life without them. I’ve
been talking to them all the time,
and I’ve been with them all the time
because of a press tour. All 20 of us
were at a festival in New Orleans,
and we’ve all planned on going to
New York and Los Angeles together.”
Before taking on this project,
Lipitz had been making short
films about first-generation stu-
dents going to college and girls’
education. Her experience with a
Jewish theme was as producer of
Modern Orthodox, staged with Molly
Ringwald and Jason Biggs.
As a youngster raised in Baltimore,
where she had her bat mitzvah,
Lipitz took dance classes and sing-
ing lessons, planning on being an
actor until attending the New York
University Tisch School of the Arts.
She realized that the life of an actor
wasn’t for her and found herself
drawn to the creative process.
“When I graduated, I started
working for a Broadway producer,
and my first show was Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels,” she recalls. “I was 24.”
Her other producing credits
include Legally Blonde: The Musical,
The Performers and A View From
the Bridge, a Tony Award-winning
production. She is represented
on Broadway this season by the
Tony Award winner (Best Play) The
Humans, which was also a Pulitzer
Prize finalist.
Lipitz served as executive pro-
ducer and creator of MTV’s series
Legally Blonde: The Musical — The
Search for Elle Woods. She also was
associate producer of A Broadway
Celebration for PBS as part of the
White House music series.
Current projects include the origi-
nal musical Brooklynite with music
and lyrics by Peter Lerman.
“Anything I do has to have a social
message to it and make a differ-
ence,” explains Lipitz, now a New
Yorker who has made more than 30
documentaries for organizations
such as Young Women’s Leadership
Network, Citymeals on Wheels,
College Bound Initiative, the Tory
Burch Foundation, Barnard College,
Turnaround for Children and the
Gateway School.
“I have worked with the Young
Women’s Leadership School in New
York, where there is a 100-percent
graduation rate,” Lipitz explains. “My
mom is an activist in Baltimore, and
I suggested that she look at these
schools as a model for something that
could be done there.
“She became a force behind the
founding of the school in Baltimore
and recruited her daughter to make
films to promote the schools. I met
these young women when they were
in the sixth grade, and I fell in love
with them. It wasn’t until many years
later that I started to film Step.”
Lipitz, a trustee of New York
University and Playwrights of New
York, does not leave stepping behind
when she goes home. Her own daugh-
ters, ages 3 and 7, are fully into it.
“My daughters are fantastic with
these steps, much better than me,” she
says. “They do this all the time, and
it’s adorable. They watched the film to
learn, but they’re not up to the stan-
dards of the Lethal Ladies just yet.” •
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