ONE DYKE'S THEATER
SELECTED PLAYS 1975 - 2014
Available on AMAZON &
SMALL PRESS DISTRIBUTION!
Terry Baum’s Dos Lesbos (1981) inspired the first anthology of lesbian plays in the history of the universe – Places, Please! (1985). The ten plays in One Dyke’s Theater span 40 years of theater about lesbian lives, from absurd farce to gripping historical drama. Baum’s pioneering works have been lauded by critics and produced all over the world. HICK: A Love Story earned “Best of Fringe” at the 2019 San Francisco Fringe Festival; “Fringe Fave” and Fringe Encore Series Selection" at the 2015 New York International Fringe Festival.
Ten groundbreaking plays about lesbian lives by Terry Baum
"This collection of plays is a delicious read, really funny and often moving. I seldom laugh out loud while reading, but I did with this anthology. The plays also serve as a kind of lesbian feminist social history. If you’re a lesbian feminist of a certain age, reading Terry Baum’s collected plays is a bit like revisiting a wittier, more entertaining version of your past."
- Tara Ayres, Midwest Book Review
From the Preface
"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
Praise for Baum's Plays
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
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
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
WAITING FOR THE PODIATRIST
“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
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
