Judy Gold on Her Sitcom Quest and TV-Centric Off-Broadway Comedy The Judy Show

The opening theme song of The Judy Show provides a succinct introduction to Judy Gold: “I’m a funny tall woman and a mom of two, I’m a lesbian and an observant Jew.” The 48-year-old comic performer and writer is also a connoisseur of ’70s and ’80s sitcoms, and her new solo show at the intimate DR2 Theatre compares her life story to characters in The Brady Bunch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls and many more. Gold channels her meddling mother, her ex and various network executives as she laments her inability to land a TV comedy of her very own. The friendly actress recently shared a good-natured kvetching session—while emphasizing her sincere love of theater—with Broadway.com.

The Judy Show is a trip down memory lane for Baby Boomers who grew up glued to the television.
Isn’t it? Those shows were like a part of my family.

Is it fair to say the show is also a sly pitch for your own sitcom?
I didn’t really mean it like that; I talk about getting rejected but not giving up. This is the story of a suburban Jewish girl who was an outcast, got teased incessantly and had a dream that she went for, even though people said, “No fucking way!” When [famed acting teacher] Bill Esper told me I was too tall to be cast, I thought, “Oh my god, how many more years am I going to hear about how tall I am?” In seventh grade, I tried out for the girls’ basketball team and the coach told me I was too tall and it wouldn’t be fair to the other players [laughs]. I Facebooked him recently because I never forgot that, and he’s still wearing Joey Buttafuoco sweatpants.

You seem like an obvious sitcom star. Why do you think you’ve never gotten a TV show?
It’s probably a combination of things. I think that people are scared to show a gay family where the kids can actually talk. Every time you see a gay family on television, they have a little baby, even Modern Family. Showtime said, “Where’s the sex? We need sex.” I said, “Can you tell me one married couple with kids who has sex all the time?” If I was a straight guy or a nonthreatening blonde girl and I told a network executive, “I have two kids by artificial insemination, my ex lives in the building, we share custody of our kids, my narcissistic mother calls me constantly, I’m a comedian, I make no money and my ex is rich”…how much more do you need?

You also talk about pitching a reality show. Were you surprised that no one picked it up?
I was really surprised. We had set it up not to be about my kids [15-year-old Henry and nine-year-old Ben]; the arc was going to be that [Gold’s girlfriend] Elysa and I would get married at the end of the first season. I wanted it to be about my struggles as a comic who is trying to raise this family. I’m middle aged, I have no job skills except for performing and writing, and you get to the point where you think, “What have I done with my life? What was all this for?”

Do you really feel that way? Look how impressively long your resume is.
I know, I know!

The show does make the point that professional success doesn’t necessarily lead to financial security.
Right. People always think you have a lot of money when they see you on TV. I get invited to $1,000-a-plate dinners, and I’m like, “Are you crazy? I’m 48, and I have to share a bathroom with my partner and my two kids.” I always thought I would have certain things, like a baby grand piano, at this point. I look at other people my age who are in finance—the closer you are to money, the more money you make. But I’ve got to tell you: As depressed as I’ve felt about what I don’t have, I know in my heart that the only thing that makes me truly happy, besides my family, is writing and performing in the theater. I’ve dreamed about it since I was a little girl.

What do you enjoy about a theatrical setting as opposed to stand-up comedy?
I’ve done stand-up since I was 18 years old, and I absolutely love it, but I used to go onstage and the audience was my peers. Now I go onstage and I could be their mother. I still make them laugh, but they’re drinking; they have no attention span. You have to fight to win their trust and attention, especially when you are a woman. In theater, they pay for a ticket. You already have their attention, and your job is to keep it. It’s just one less challenge.

The life of a stand-up comedian must be more challenging for women.
I’m never one to say, “Oh, it’s really hard for women.” But look: I think in every profession, except perhaps nursing or teaching, it’s harder for women. Women are taught that if you want to be a lady, keep your opinions to yourself and be polite. Comedy is all about having a point of view, and it’s also about power. In this country, a loud woman with an opinion is not really embraced unless she’s in her 50s and 60s, like Judge Judy or Joy Behar.

You have such a gift for dialects. Was Saturday Night Live ever a possibility for you?
Never. It’s the women in the business who helped me through the years. Margaret Cho really pushed for me to be on her show [All-American Girl]; Rosie O’Donnell [Gold won two Emmys for writing and producing O’Donnell’s talk show]; Joy Behar and Susie Essman. Those four women really fought for me.

You make endless jokes about your mom, but there’s obviously a huge amount of love there.
Right. She will be 89 in August, and I still call her once a day. Thank god her brain still works, because I need the material.

Is she proud that you’re accompanying yourself on the piano in The Judy Show?
She hasn’t seen the show yet, but yeah, she’ll be thrilled. My parents wanted me to be a music teacher. I was like, “Uh, no.”

So, are you and Elysa planning a wedding?
We are! We don’t know when, and we don’t know where. First we have to find an apartment. It was easier to get gay marriage passed than it is to find a frigging apartment. And there’s a rule: Elysa is 10 and a half months older than me; her birthday is December 31 and mine is November 15. There are six weeks when we’re the same age, so she said we can only get married during those six weeks because the newspaper will have us down as the same age. I said, “OK, really?” But that’s the big rule.

Will your sons take part in the ceremony?
They will walk me down the aisle, definitely. I have to say, when [gay marriage] passed, we had the TV on, and I looked over and they had huge smiles on their faces. I said [in a singsong voice], “We’re going to get married!” My 15-year-old quickly went back to Facebook, but I think they were genuinely moved. Kids in gay families just want to be treated like everyone else. We have walked through the airport so many times and had people ask. “Who’s their real mother? Let me see their birth certificate.” I want people to forget that we’re gay and say, “They’re just like us.” Because we are, unfortunately!

See Judy Gold in The Judy Show at the DR2 Theatre.