The Blue Dress

The Blue Dress
Solo Performance by Bruce Bierman

Wednesday, June 23th, 2004 7:30pm
LGBT Community Center: Rainbow Room

Tickets: $12-$15 sliding scale

Download PDF order form to purchase tickets by mail: Ticket Form

Photo: Steve M. Hayden

The Blue Dress
(written and performed by Bruce Bierman)

When a six year old boy discovers his mother’s blue ball gown and begins lip synching to Judy Garland, he soon finds himself visiting a Dr. Richard Green at the U.C.L.A. Neuro Psychiatric Department with 63 other sissy boys being treated for a rare new sickness Dr. Green called Gender Identity Disorder in Children (GIDC). Years later, he is shocked when he discovers what REALLY happened behind Dr. Green’s closed office door.

A true story told by a master storyteller and performer. Bruce is also the playwright and director of the award winning gender bending dance musical, ‘The Passion of Carmen!’ and a two time recipient of the AIRspace grant from the Jon Sims Center for the Arts for his original productions of ‘The Face’ and ‘The Blue Dress’. Bruce is a member of Intergeneration: Building Queer Community of All Ages Through Art and currently helping to create their newest venture –IG Television.

The Blue Dress will be followed by ‘The Gender Hour’–hosted by radio personality, Helga Sitkin. Her guests will include a leading panel of experts in gender identity including the journalist Karl Bryant –a sociologist who is studying the doctors that studied HIM. He was also one of the 63 boys treated in Dr. Green’s ‘Feminine Boy Project’

Karl Bryant is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is working on a project that traces the history of Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood, including current debates within and outside of psychiatry about the legitimacy of the diagnosis. Karl has interviewed many of the past and current GID researchers, as well as advocates working to change treatment and diagnostic practices. Karl was a research subject in Richard Green’s ‘feminine boy study’ at UCLA beginning in the late 1960s.

Artist Bio
BRUCE BIERMAN
wrote and directed the long running and award winning gender bending musical, The Passion of Carmen! and Wade in the Water which won the Playwright’s Commission Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He is also a two time recipient of the AIRspace grant from the Jon Sims Center for the Arts for his original productions of The Face and The Blue Dress. Bruce is currently an active member of Intergeneration: Building Queer Community of All Ages Through Art and currently helping to create their newest venture –IG Television. He is also the resident storyteller and ARTS program director at Edgewood Center for Children in San Francisco.