A new play by John Epperson--otherwise known as Lypsinka--will be performed at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre from Friday, April 21 through Sunday, May 7, 2006.
My Deah, which is an update of Euripides'
Medea set in the New South, will be presented as the Abingdon Theatre Company's final Stage II Production of the 2005-2006 season. Directed by
Mark Waldrop (
Bea Arthur: Just Between Friends and
Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly),
My Deah "spotlights Gator Hedgepeth, a former Mississippi football star, and his plans to abandon his wife, My Deah – an ex-beauty queen from Louisiana with a penchant for a gossip-filled bridge game – to marry Simplicity Bullard, the daughter of the corrupt, one-armed Governor Bullard. When
My Deah confronts her card-dealing friends (and Governor Bullard) and she lays out her plans for revenge . . . y'all just might could die laughin'!," state press notes.
The cast of
My Deah features
Bryan Batt (
La Cage Aux Folles), Phillip Clark, Lori Gardner,
Michael Hunsaker (national tour of
Ragtime), Geoffrey Molloy,
Nancy Opel (
Urinetown, Fiddler on the Roof), Jay Rogers and Kevin Townley (
Shockheaded Peter). Lypsinka is not in the cast.
Lypsinka also stars in the upcoming feature film
Another Gay Movie, directed by Todd Stephens and written by Stephens and Tim Kaltenecker (TLA Releasing). "In this raunchy, gay spoof of teen movies, a group of high school grads swear to lose their virginity before going to college and spend their summer trying to get laid." Lypsinka stars as "Mrs. Wilson" the mother of one of the horny teens, opposite
Scott Thompson ("Kids in the Hall") as "Mr. Wilson." The all-star gay cast also includes Graham Norton ("Graham Norton Effect"), Ant ("Celebrity Fit Club"), James Getzlaff ("Boy Meets Boy") and Richard Hatch ("Survivor").
The film will premiere in New York as part of The 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, which runs from April 25th through May 7th. It will be shown on Friday, April 28 at 11:59 p.m. (Loews Village Theatre), Wednesday, May 3 at 7:15 p.m. (Loews 34th Street) and Friday, May 5 at 11:30 p.m. (Loews 34th Street).
Another Gay Movie will play other film festivals this spring before opening nationwide in July.
In addition,
The Passion of the Crawford--"an evening of extravagant illusion" featuring Lypsinka as Joan Crawford – will premiere in San Francisco at The Empire Plush Room Cabaret, playing May 9 – 21.
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.
Performances for
My Deah are Wednesday – Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with
weekend matinees on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. in
the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre at Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex, 312 West
36th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. Tickets are $19 and can be
purchased through
www.smarttix.com, by calling (212) 868-4444
or at the box office prior to showtime.
The Empire Plush Room Cabaret is located at 940 Sutter St., San Francisco, CA. For more information, call (415) 885-2800.
