Terry Baum

"This collection of plays is a delicious read, really funny and often moving.The plays also serve as a kind of lesbian feminist social history. I seldom laugh out loud while reading, but I did with this anthology. - Tara Ayres, Midwest Book Review

From the Preface of ONE DYKE’S THEATER:

"We all start out in theater. In every culture, children play games where they assume different roles – mother, cowgirl, bandit, baby. We pretend. I myself spent most of my childhood as a dog. I wasn’t allowed to have one because of allergies. I will always be grateful to my mother for putting a bowl of water on the floor for my Doggie Self to lap up. At one point, a neighbor heard me barking and asked Mom if we’d gotten a puppy. I was so proud.

At a certain point, most of us stop pretending. But some of us never do. We love acting out stories, standing up in front of a crowd, collaboration. We are theater people.

In the first grade, my class was scheduled to perform How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? at the PTA extravaganza. If anyone vibrated with the desperate longing of those lyrics, it was me! Yet, the class voted for Marybeth, the cutest and most popular girl, to sing my song. I was devastated. The teacher consigned me to drag a gigantic paper mache goldfish across the stage on a leash as Marybeth sang that immortal lyric, “You can’t take a goldfish for a walk.”

And then it happened -- the miracle that you’ve seen in so many Busby Berkeley movies: On the Big Night, five minutes before the first grade was scheduled to sing its song, Marybeth got stage fright, threw up and refused to go on! In a total panic, the teacher asked if any other students knew the Doggie Song by heart. Would you believe I was the only one? Believe. So, while Marybeth dragged that lousy goldfish for a walk, I belted out my passion for a puppy. My fate was sealed...."

- Terry Baum

About the author:

Terry Baum is a slightly world-renowned lesbian playwright. Four of Baum's plays have been published, produced all over the world, and translated into French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. DOS LESBOS, A Play By, For & About Perverts (1981, with Carolyn Myers) inspired the first anthology of lesbian plays (PLACES, PLEASE in 1985), and offended the Pope during World Pride 2000 in Rome. Baum’s most recent solo play, HICK: A LOVE STORY, The romance of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, was chosen “Best of Fringe” at the 2019 San Francisco International Fringe Festival and a “Fringe Fave” at the 2015 New York International Fringe Festival. WAITING FOR THE PODIATRIST was chosen “Best of Fringe” at the 2016 San Francisco Fringe Festival.

As a solo performer, Terry has toured the U.S., Canada, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Cuba, and most recently Mexico. As a member of the always relevant and irreverent duo Crackpot Crones, she and Carolyn Myers have performed lesbian feminist sketch comedy and improvisation in both the States and Mexico.

Terry is a passionate blogger. She leaves her day job as a slightly world-renowned lesbian playwright to create BaumBlog (www.terrybaum.blogspot.com), a tri-weekly blog about politics -- both alarming and absurd, the quirks and quibbles of everyday pandemic life, and her photo journeys around San Francisco. Feedspot named BaumBlog a “2020 Top 100 LGBTQ Blog.”

Praise for the plays in ONE DYKE’S THEATER:

HICK: A LOVE STORY - Based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s Letters to Lorena Hickok

“Terry Baum combines extensive research with vivid writing and the passion of a great playwright. This deeply moving play, about the love affair of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, embraces the full relationship between two extraordinary women across the inside of time.” - Blanche Weisen Cook, Biographer, Eleanor Roosevelt, VOLS. 1,2 & 3

“In HICK: A Love Story, based on the true story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, viewers are sent on a journey of love and discovery, as the two women communicate via letters sent back and forth over the course of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency. A story told by women, about women, HICK unveils the heartwarming (and pleasantly shocking) romance between the two lovebirds... Commanding the stage for most of the performance, Baum channels every ounce of passion, longing, power and poise one would need to guide the audience through this rollercoaster of a romance." – Daily Californian

https://www.liliththeater.com/hick-a-love-story-the-love-affair-o

IMMEDIATE FAMILY

“What makes this play special, and ultimately moving, is the way social commentary is so deftly balanced with human considerations. There are instances when the script almost reads as poetry, so well-crafted and coupled are the words. Immediate Family engages your attention, your consideration, and, at play’s end, your compassion.” - Seattle Times

“The play succeeds superbly in its depiction of the impact of Rose’s coma on Virginia and in drawing out the details of the two women’s lives together. A rare and deeply moving portrait of the love between two women.” - San Francisco Bay Times

“Will the scared, diffident Virginia pull the plug on her comatose wife herself, as a last act of love? A moving, sometimes comic, observation about love, despair and hope. Remarkably honest.” - SF Chronicle

ONE FOOL - The Astonishing & Terrifying Adventures of a Yankee Dyke in the Land of Dykes & Tulips

“A hilarious exploration of the rocky terrain of lesbian love.” - Toronto Xtra

“Most Influential Gay & Lesbian Plays Selection” - Purple Circuit

TWO FOOLS - or LOVE CONQUERS ALL – NOT!

“A bright yet tender comedy about the perils of an international, interracial dyke relationship.

Baum has created complex characters whose inability to turn their passions into a stable partnership rings with painful truth… Tightly written, the play’s lines between comedy and drama are always shifting.” – Bay Area Reporter

“The writer and foreign visitor fall in love charmingly. But the romance is doomed by the forces of immigration law. The play is bright and often touching.” San Francisco Chronicle

“There’s no way you won’t love TWO FOOLS!” - San Francisco Bay Times

WAITING FOR THE PODIATRIST – A tragi-comic play with puppets and songs

“A provocatively comic show about a middle-aged lesbian dealing with an upset, judgmental mother as her father lies comatose in intensive care, his toenails growing out of control. Baum’s acute, thoughtful humor carries the day.” - San Francisco Chronicle

https://www.liliththeater.com/podiatrist

DOS LESBOS - A Play By, For & About Perverts

“An entertaining hodgepodge of scenes, stories, and fantasies about being gay, coming out, violence against women, and working out the wrinkles in a realistic love relationship. The characters are unstereotyped, ambivalent, frequently witty individuals, and the piece frolics, scampers, and practically stands on its head to avoid being a boring tract.” – San Francisco Bay Guardian