St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial

Commentary : A survivor's tale
By Joan Lipkin
Sunday, October 15, 2000

I remember when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 42, and I was terrified. With my overactive playwright's imagination, I was already writing the obituary in my mind. At the time, I knew very few women who had had breast cancer, certainly not my age, and I imagined the worst. Four years later, I am still here. Like the 1985 Toyota I insist on driving, I am slightly dented and a little slower, but still on the road.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a three-day series of articles on the Americans with Disabilities Act over the 2000 Labor Day weekend. The DisAbility Project and some of its performers were specifically highlighted in those articles. Following are the stories.

You can visit the Post-Dispatch online or the DisAbility Project website. The ADA special section is no longer included in the Post-Dispatch's Web site, but the articles are included here.

 

By Lorraine Kee
Of The Post-Dispatch
Sunday, Sept. 3, 2000

The DisAbility Project also works with nondisabled actors, but its main goal is to let able-bodied people know that people with disabilities really aren't that much different.

Somewhere along the journey from obscurity to simmering celebrity -- after director Joan Lipkin's mind first lit on the idea for the DisAbility Project four years ago, but well before the theatre company landed for the first time on an honest-to-goodness stage this spring -- the Sharing Circle evolved.

 

Andrew Lackey races through his house with friends Stephanie Sleeper (center) and Beth Heger at a party celebrating Lackey's graduation from Horton Watkins High in Ladue.
(Jamie Rector/P-D)

The Disability Project"
As printed in the Post-Dispatch
Monday, Sept. 4, 2000

" Go Figure"

(Rich is alone onstage)

RICH: You may not be able to tell, but I used to be quite the Barbie girl. Oh yeah, I always was a traditional little girl at heart. I enjoyed dressing up and all that went with it. From my first pair of panty-hose to my bouffant hair, shellacked in place with half a can of Aqua-Net. Remember how popular big hair was in the 80's? The bigger the hair, the closer to God - and with the make-up to match. The trick was to go to that border-line Barbie look without being sickening; I'm not so sure I always succeeded. God, I can remember my college girlfriends and I dressing to go out for the night with the boom box blaring, "No Parking On The Dance Floor."

By Lorraine Kee
Of the Post-Dispatch
Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000

The show won't go on for at least an hour.

But members of the DisAbility Project have arrived early, at the urging of director Joan Lipkin, for a performance at the 8th annual International Post-Polio and Independent Living Conference at the Marriott Pavilion hotel. Tonight they will perform in front of their biggest house yet -- about 200 people. In the audience will be polio survivors, health professionals, support group leaders, family and friends.

The gig marks the end of a productive winter-to-spring run for the Project, perhaps a turning point too for the troupe. The ensemble, which consists of actors with disabilities and without them, has evolved from an idea to gigs. Now it has to make some decisions about the future. But that's a matter for their potluck supper in two days. First, the ensemble has to get through tonight.

Joan Lipkin has been a fixture on the St. Louis theatre scene for some time now.

Recently, her That Uppity Theatre Company was one of the groups affected by the closure of the St. Marcus Theatre, in the City's Fox Park neighborhood. The old church basement was transformed for more than a decade into the area's most progressive theatre venue, featuring a high of experimental and gay-themed programming, as well as a good number of one-man and one-woman shows, brought to life by a handful of independent producers.

Lipkin, though, never lets a mere problem like the shutdown of a space keep her from moving in multiple directions at once.

Sunday, April 2, 2000

When art swims out of the mainstream, it often has trouble surviving
By The Arts & Entertainment Team Of The Post-Dispatch

Some pictures offend. Some music leaves listeners holding their ears. Some plays bite the hands that feed them. Should the avant-garde have to fight to survive, or should the region be more aggressive in supporting it?

March 2000

What is your position(s) in the arts; what roles do you currently play?

I am the Artistic Director of That Uppity Theatre Company, founded in 1989 to put the principles of cultural diversity into innovative theatrical practice. I am also a playwright, director, teacher, social activist, and bona-fide shit disturber.

By Scott Miller
InTheater Magazine, April 10, 1998

The age of the impressario is not dead -- but those few who are carrying on today in the tradition of Florenz Ziegfeld, Billy Rose, and Serge Diaghilev are not necessarily located in New York.

Dear Friends,

In case you didn't know, last year I was on Imagine St. Louis on Channel 4, with Myriam Wright, anchorperson on Channel 4, Ellen Futterman, Post-Dispatch cultural critic, and Jill Maguire, executive director of Regional Arts Commission.

There was also a wonderful feature on Scott Miller and New Line Theatre's final weekend of "Out on Broadway" at the dearly belated St. Marcus Theatre.

Our topic was the role and challenges of non-mainstream art.

If you would like to see more coverage of the arts like this, I would really appreciate it if you would send out an e-mail to an extensive list whenever stories like this are presented. Also, whenever articles and TV shows ask for responses, please do so and encourage your friends to send a note, too. Some areas of focus could include space issues, funding, the need for community support, etc.

Here is the thing ... If the media runs stories like these, especially on TV, and people do not respond, they'll think that nobody is reading or watching. And they won't feel encouraged to continue.

Please do what you can to help spread the word.

Contact the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at [email protected], sending a letter to Imagine St. Louis, St. Louis Post Dispatch, 900 N. Tucker Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63101 or faxing 314-340-4050.

Contact KMOV-TV Channel 4, Steve Perron at his e-mail address, [email protected].

All best regards,
Joan Lipkin
Artistic Director
That UPPITY Theatre Company