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WRITERS/DIRECTORS
- TARA JEPSEN & BETH LISICK
Tara
Jepsen and Beth Lisick have been collaborating since the Pabst arrived
at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in 1999. On a cross country
tour with legendary spoken word troupe Sister Spit, the ladies ventured
out into the woods one night and returned to camp with the idea for their
first stage show, Fumbling Toward Rock: The Miriam and Helen Story. Centering
around child stars who could never recapture the magic of their one fluke
radio hit, the comedy opened to great enthusiasm and ran for a month at
Venue 9 in San Francisco before touring to Olympia, WA for a sold-out
performance at the original Ladyfest. Four months later the show was made
into a twenty-minute short movie by the same name, produced by Steakhaus
Productions (By Hook or By Crook), which debuted in the Frameline Film
Festival in 2002 and also played at L.A.’s Outfest in 2003.
Spring
of 2002 Beth and Tara hatched a new comedy duo, Carole Murphy and Mitzi
Fitzsimmons. Their brand of dipstick estrogen comedy quickly became the
popular choice for hosting events on the benefit circuit, supporting mayoral
candidates, tours of sex workers, and indie art showcases like San Francisco’s
Ladyfest and Olympia’s Homo-a-Gogo. They have also brightened stages
at gay men’s sex clubs, the Queer Cultural Center, and New Langton
Arts.
They
are at work on Leaving Livermore, their first feature-length screenplay.
"
It may actually be dangerous to allow Tara Jepsen and Beth Lisick
to conspire artistically. Individually, these ladies are improv geniuses,
pop culture hooligans and brutal comedians whose jabs are both poignant
and sharp. Together, they just might invent an entirely new art form.
Like Ann Magnusen and Sandra Bernhard's test-tube twin daughters staging
a Strangers With Candy episode as a VH1 Behind the Music rock opera. If
they were any more brilliant they'd induce seizures." - Michelle
Tea, author, Valencia (Seal Press)
“…two
of San Francisco’s favorite performance artists”—Brock
Keeling, SF Weekly, 10/2003
A
partial list of performances as Carole Murphy and Mitzi Fitzsimmons:
The
Werepad, San Francisco, April 2004
Opening for Neil Hamburger, The Hemlock, March 2004
Voz Alta, San Diego, CA, March 2004
The Parlour Club, Los Angeles, March 2004
Club Chuckles, The Hemlock, December 2003
Benefit for mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez, The Make-Out Room, October
2003
Smegma (cabaret night hosted by Kirk Read), Eros, October 2003
Point Blank, New Langton Arts, July 2003
SF Queer Arts Festival, Somarts, June 2003
SF Queer Arts Festival, Queer Cultural Center, June 2003
Sex Workers Art Tour Benefit, El Rio, April 2003
Benefit for 2good4U comedy troupe, Spanganga, December 2002
Homo-a-Gogo (art & music festival in Olympia, WA), Capitol Theater,
September 2002
Ladyfest San Francisco, Mission Creek Cafe, July 2002
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