Dan's Papers - July 11, 2008 - Judy Gold Explains It All in a Night of Comedy

What do you do when you're a 13-year-old girl who's 6-feet tall and plays clarinet in the school band - a bonafide "band nerd?"

There's just one choice: Become a stand-up comic.

While those dubious achievements may have contributed to Judy Gold's genesis as a comic, the 40-something comedian - who will perform an evening of stand-up on Saturday, July 12, at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons as part of Guild Hall's summer series - actually made the decision to do comedy in college. Back in the mid-'80s, her dorm mates at Rutgers basically bribed her to do a stand-up show, using her friends as fodder. The effort was a big success. Everyone loved it - especially Gold herself who started going to open mic nights in the city. In 1989, a comic cancelled a spot on "Caroline's Comedy Hour" and Gold was asked to fill in. It was her first of many TV appearances that were to include an HBO special (that earned her a Cable Ace award), a half-hour comedy special for LOGO and appearances on Comedy Central, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "The View" (as a co-host), "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and spots on a few drama series. Gold was also involved behind the scenes in television, as a writer/producer for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show."

More recently, Gold hit the stage with her live show, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, which earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination, and the 2007 GLAAD award for "Outstanding New York Theatre." She performed the work first Off-off Broadway before it moved to Off-Broadway, and then she toured it for a year.

The piece, a take on The Vagina Monologues, was based on questions asked of, well, 50 Jewish mothers from around the country of different ages, ethnicities, occupations, and including holocaust survivors. Also represented are the views of a gay, Jewish mother - Gold, who lives on the Upper West Side in New York. "I know that's shocking for a Jewish lesbian," she joked. "There are a lot of gay families on Upper West Side. It's baby stroller central."

While Gold is gay and a comic, she has never been labeled a "gay comic."

"I'm a comic and happen to be gay," she said in an interview en route to a family weekend at the Jersey shore. "I don't ram it down peoples' throats - unless I think it will annoy them."

Like many comics before her, Gold uses her own life as fodder for her act, and she treats the "gay content" as all other content - a jumping off point for humor. "When I first started, I never talked about being gay - it's a part of who I am, not who I am. When I started doing stand-up, in my early 20s, it wasn't a big topic, although I wasn't in the closet," she said. "But once I had children, I had all this great fodder for my act - parent things, school things. I was going to meet my partner at a meeting at our son's school and a teacher said 'Oh! You're Henry's mom? There's another mom here with a son named Henry.' There's so much material for me to draw on. I've always talked about my family, so this was the natural extension. Besides, I didn't want my children to ever think anything about our family had to be a secret." Gold's one-woman show, written with Kate Moira Ryan, was a comedic success, and sometimes served to enlighten as well. "When I did the show in D.C., an army guy came up to me after and said, 'After watching your show, I thought that gay people really should be able to get married.'"

While Gold isn't a political activist, she supports basic civil rights efforts when she can, looking forward to the time that gay marriage is recognized at the federal level, and in New York state as it is in Massachusetts and California "I don't want to get married in P-town. I want to get married in New York, where I live. To me, it's a civil right," she said. "When I think of the Defense of Marriage Act, I want to say, 'You're defending marriage? Just which of your marriages are you defending?'"

Ironically, Gold recently shot a pilot celebrating that very institution: hosting a new version of the Newlywed Game for the Game Show Network. "I love game shows, and this one is a riot," she said. "In the last round, new couples compete against couples who played on the original show." Is doing this show Gold's own defense of marriage? Maybe. "The producers tell me that gay couples will be on the show too."

Guild Hall presents Judy Gold in an evening of stand up, Saturday, July 12, at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons. For more information, call 631-324-9858 or go to www.jcoh.org.