Lypsinka Returns to LA for The Passion of the Crawford, Oct. 6-23

By: Sep. 29, 2005
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In his first Los Angeles performances since 2001, John Epperson will return with his feminine alter ego Lypsinka to the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center's Renberg Theatre for the West Coast premiere of his latest work, The Passion of the Crawford, "a fantasia on the persona of the renowned Hollywood glamour goddess Joan Crawford." Opening for a limited engagement on Thursday, October 6, the show will run through October 23.

In The Passion, which was a hit in New York, "Lypsinka trains her formidable talents on a single font of inspiration – but what a wellspring it is – Miss Joan Crawford! Primarily based on an extended and revealing live interview conducted late in the life of La Crawford, Lypsinka's spot-on rendering of the larger-than-life star not only wrings the situation for all its hilarity, it presents a 'strange and mesmerizing …poignant psychological drama' (New York Times)," state press notes. The show, which will benefit the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, will be helmed by Kevin Malony.

Epperson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, and began his behind-the-scenes New York theatre career as a rehearsal pianist at American Ballet Theater. Lypsinka burst on the scene in I Could Go On Lip-Synching and performed such star turns as The Fabulous Lypsinka Show, Lypsinka! Now It Can Be Lip-Synched, Lypsinka Must Be Destroyed, Lypsinka! The Boxed Set, and Lypsinka! As I Lay Lip-Synching. In addition to Epperson's appearance in the recent New York City Opera production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, the multiple-award-winner (including the LA Weekly Award for Outstanding Solo Performance 2001) has appeared in the films Wigstock: The Movie, Vampire's Kiss, Witch Hunt, Angels in America, Kinsey and the upcoming Another Gay Movie.

TWEED TheaterWorks was founded by Kevin Malony in the early 1980s and has grown from tiny, late-night shows in East Village nightclubs to full-scale productions at premier Manhattan venues. "For nearly two decades, TWEED has produced some of the most innovative and unusual performance art, musical, experimental and progressive theater in New York. TWEED was the first off-off Broadway company to produce an annual festival of new works, presenting original work encompassing all of the performing arts. Devoted to on-going artistic expression on a budget, TWEED has diligently struggled to create a fertile ground for artists to present their work. Their most recent endeavor, the TWEED Fractured Classics Series, is an extremely popular underground series that offers staged readings of classic American plays and films featuring alternative, often cross-gender casting."

The Renberg Theatre is located in The Village at Ed Gould Plaza (1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles, CA).

The performance schedule is Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00 p.m and Sundays at 7:00 p.m. Tickets, which are $35, can be purchased by calling 323-860-7300. For more information, visit www.tweedtheater.org.


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