Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Comedian Gold mines for hits on TV, theater stage

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, June 27, 2003 | 8:58 a.m.

Lisa Ferguson's Laugh Lines column appears Fridays. Her Sun Lite Column appears Mondays. Reach her at lmsferguson@yahoo.com.

Judy Gold insists her family isn't much different than most in the United States. Aside from the fact her young sons have two mothers, everything else is status quo.

"We have the exact same issues as every other married couple with kids, and we just happen to be gay," explains comedian/actress Gold of her relationship with Sharon, her partner of 18 years. The couple are raising their boys -- 6 1/2-year-old Henry and 22-month-old Ben -- in New York.

Ward and June Cleaver they aren't. Still, Gold -- who performs her stand-up act tonight through Sunday at The Improv at Harrah's -- says there's no reason the scenario couldn't serve as the basis for a hit prime-time sitcom. She recently sold a script inspired by her family's affairs to cable's Oxygen Network and hopes it will become a series.

Being gay parents, she says, "adds this extra layer of comedy, I think." But sexuality won't be the focus of the still-untitled show. "My life is hilarious whether I'm gay or straight."

The statuesque Gold (she stands 6 feet 3 inches tall) is no stranger to television, having guested on a slew of series including "Sex and the City," "Law & Order," "The Drew Carey Show," "Roseanne," "Hollywood Squares," "Politically Incorrect" and Comedy Central's late-night talk show, "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn." She also hosts HBO's "At the Multiplex with Judy Gold," a woman-on-the-street-style segment in which she queries moviegoers.

Behind the camera, Gold spent two seasons, in 1998 and '99, as a writer and producer on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," which garnered her a pair of Emmy Awards.

"It was such a great experience because it was such a hit show, and I learned an incredible amount" about the inner workings of TV talk shows, she says. "It was an invaluable experience and, of course, I have two Emmys."

If her proposed sitcom makes it onto Oxygen's lineup, the 40-year-old Gold says she's prepared to deal with the inevitable public backlash over its nontraditional family -- just as she has been doing for years in real life.

"I just find the whole thing hypocritical ... I have two kids and they love me, and there are two parents living together in the home, which is more than 50 percent of children have," she says. "My family is a family and I don't care what the (expletive) people think. My kids are happy and they're well-adjusted."

Gold has a live-theater background, having performed in a New York production of "The Vagina Monologues" while 6 1/2 months pregnant with son Ben.

She's on a quest to find an off-Broadway home for her own one-woman play, "G-d Doesn't Pay Rent Here." Co-written by Gold and playwright Kate Moira Ryan, the women first staged the piece last summer in Seattle. For its next run, the production will be helmed by Michael Greif, who directed the hit musical, "Rent," on Broadway.

"We had interviewed Jewish mothers all over the country, and it's based on those mothers," Gold explains of the play, describing it as " 'The Vagina Monologues' of Jewish mothers, but it's about me becoming a mother, my relationship with my mother."

Whatever happens with her acting career, Gold vows not to abandon stand-up comedy. As it is, she performs her act in New York up to six night each week, and still finds time to play gigs around the country.

"I know a lot of comics use stand-up as a vehicle to get on a series, but I love it," she says. "There's just something for me that's so therapeutic and freeing. I always have a better night's sleep when I do a set ... Plus, I get bored with my act, so I have to try out new material. I'm not a fast material writer because I tend to write it onstage, which is probably why I go onstage so much."

One constant -- and favorite -- of Gold's act is her kvetching about her overbearing Jewish mother, Ruth. Long the butt of her daughter's jokes, Gold assures, "She loves it ... Half the time she's saying these ridiculously stupid things, she knows that it's gonna be in the act.

"People always ask me what she thinks, and I don't feel sorry for her at all, because she loves the attention. All her friends call her and go, 'Is that true, Ruth? Did you really say that?' ... And then she calls me up all the time: 'When do I get residuals?' 'When I stop paying for therapy, that's when you start getting residuals.' "

But Gold is learning firsthand what comes around, goes around. "The sad part is, my kids have two Jewish mothers."

Out for laughs

Another Station Casinos property is getting a sense of humor. For the next month, The Green Room Comedy Corner will undergo a trial run at Santa Fe Station, sister property of Palace Station, home of Laugh Trax comedy club.

Each week pairs of comics (names you've likely heard and seen on HBO and Comedy Central) will perform hourlong-plus shows at The Green Room Comedy Corner at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Tickets are $12.95 plus tax, with a one-drink minimum. If all goes well, the club will likely become part of the hotel-casino's regular entertainment options.

Viewers of the hit CBS sitcoms, "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "King of Queens," will recognize Jon Manfrellotti as recurring character Gianni (he plays a buddy of both shows' stars) when he performs July 14 through July 20 at The Riviera Comedy Club.

Whoops: Your humble scribe flubbed some info in last week's column. Contestants of NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing" will be voted off the show by audiences at the comedy clubs where they perform their weekly challenges, not by television viewers. Sorry for any confusion the error may have caused.