Original Post Courtesy of SheWired.com
Judy Gold always wanted to live in a sitcom. Growing up a too-tall, nerdy budding lesbian in New Jersey, she wanted her home life to be like The Brady Bunch, high school to be like Room 222, college to be like The Facts of Life, and her eventual independent adult life to be like The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Eventually, though, Gold forged a life sitcom-worthy in itself — this self-described 6-foot-3 observant Jewish lesbian mom is a successful actor and stand-up comedian, living with her partner and two sons in the same New York City building as her former partner, and dealing with a colorful, lovable, but sometimes irritating mother.
And don’t think she hasn’t pitched this as a series idea, but so far Hollywood has failed to bite — which is too bad, judging from Gold’s newest stage show, The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom, currently having its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles after a well-received New York run in 2011.
In the one-woman show, written by Gold with Kate Moira Ryan and directed by Amanda Charlton, Gold hilariously recounts the travails and triumphs of her life, relating them to sitcoms in a way that will resonate with Baby Boomers, Gen X-ers, and anyone who’s watched a lot of TV Land. Gold also performs snippets of the theme songs while accompanying herself on piano, and images from the shows are projected onstage.
Noting her love for The Brady Bunch, she says it makes sense: “The father was a closet homo and the maid was a dyke.” And sitcom families, she points out, were good at communicating — unlike her family, who had two modes of communication, “screaming and not talking to each other.”
Gold also goes into the trauma of sleepaway camp, where there were open showers and because of her height, “My vagina was in everyone’s face — that works well now,” and the counselors were nothing like Reuben Kincaid, the band manager and delightful bad influence on The Partridge Family. And then came high school, where she attempted to be popular — by joining the marching band.
Original Article