LOS ANGELES — Running at the Geffen Playhouse since June 18, Judy Gold’s one-woman show, “The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom,” is being held over until August 18, due to popular demand.
The show premiered off-Broadway at the DR2 Theatre in 2011 to positive reviews, which continued in Los Angeles, with the Los Angeles Times calling Gold “an enormously likable performer.”
A successful standup comic since the 1980s, Gold is active in the LGBT and Jewish communities. In a recent interview with ARTINFO, she spoke about the show, women in comedy, and changing attitudes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act.
Tell us a little about the show. It came from your experience pitching a sitcom?
I’m really proud of the show and it really is a very honest story about my dreams and growing up in the ’70s. The fact is I was addicted to sitcoms growing up. I always thought when I grew up that I would be on a sitcom or have my own sitcom. It’s really a story of having a dream and following your dream.
Since it’s based on your personal experiences, how do you know how much to reveal? Do you ever get reprimanded by people close to you?
I did have an aunt who heard a joke and took my brother and my sister and I out of the will. We call it the four million dollar joke and it wasn’t even funny. My uncle had died and we were at shiva or something and she was wearing this necklace and someone commented, “That’s a nice necklace.” And she said, “Oh, it’s Dave’s old belt buckle.” And I said, “Oh, what about those round ball earrings?” Of course she heard it, and it was so many years ago but my brother and sister never let me live it down.
How is this different than what you do in your standup act?
They have a beginning, middle, and end and I’m really telling a story. The difference between a theater and a comedy club, it’s like night and day. There’s no blenders going off, there’s no waitresses, there’s no checks. In comedy clubs you really have to fight to get their attention. In theater, they come ready. They are paying attention and you have to fight to keep their attention. And I get to have moments that are not funny, that are just emotional, and just being able to take that side and have those moments and have the audience go on this journey with me.
There’s been a lot of talk about women in comedy lately. Suddenly people have woken up to the fact that women can be funny.
Funny is funny no matter what. There’s plenty of non-funny men and yet no one says men aren’t funny if they hear a non-funny man. They’ll have three male comics and it’s a show. Three female comics on a show is a special event. Ladies night out!
The Supreme Court recently overturned DOMA. As a gay parent, do you see attitudes changing?
I see it with my children. They have no reaction to a transgender child in their school, a child with two moms, a child with two dads, a gay child, a questioning child — they’re people. It’s happened pretty fast, I think. In our lifetime, for the federal government to acknowledge same sex marriage. We [still] have a lot of work to do… and there are plenty of politicians who feel that they have the right to say the most awful, horrible things about homosexuals and the children of homosexuals. But still, I definitely believe I see it in so many ways.
And yet there are still people who are outraged by the decision.
If I marry my partner and I live in a house with my kid, how does that affect your life? How does that affect your marriage? How does that affect your family? When you really think about it and you break it down, you’re telling me Jerry Sandusky is entitled to more rights than I am. Eric Menendez got married in jail, and that’s sanctioned by our government. How is that fair?
Do you think it’s getting easier to come out?
A gay person comes out hundreds of times a day, especially a gay mom like me. When I’m with my kids, you get these questions, “Oh, is the dad tall?” People just assume. So we ware always coming out and my kids are always probably coming out, too. When they meet new people, “What does your dad do?” When we get to the point of not assuming, that is going to be amazing. Mostly I see with the next generation. I see it with gay kids in their 20s — “My parents know, no problem.” If they could see the reaction of our parents when we told them! It’s night and day. I think that generation is going to really change the world regarding this issue.