The RRazz Room Celebrates 30 Years of Lypsinka with THE PASSION OF THE CRAWFORD, 9/4-16

The RRazz Room, San Francisco's premier nightclub, will welcome back acclaimed entertainer Lypsinka for a special two-week engagement from September 4 to 16 to celebrate Lypsinka's 30th anniversary. She will recreate the widely popular show "The Passion of the Crawford" - a fab fantasia about the refraction of celebrity and addiction to fame - for the first time in the Bay Area in more than five years. John Epperson, appearing as his alter ego Lypsinka, has always delved into powerful womanhood for his groundbreaking shows. Incorporating a sizable dollop of Joan Crawford's large persona, Lypsinka devotes the show entirely to the Oscar-winning actress playing out interviews and speeches given by Crawford. "The Passion of the Crawford" is directed by Kevin Malony and also stars Steve Hasley as The Interviewer.

Epperson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, a long way from the exciting worlds in which Lypsinka travels: movies (Witch Hunt with Dennis Hopper, Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN, Wigstock: The Movie, Angels In America, Kinsey, Another Gay Movie, Another Gay Sequel); television (HBO specials Sandra After Dark with Sandra Bernhard, and Dragtime; George Michael's video Too Funky, PBS's The United States Of Poetry and special features on the Mommie Dearest and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? DVDs); fashion (appearing in the Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles shows of haute couture designer Thierry Mugler, modeling for Valentino, Pauline Trigere, Barneys New York, and launching lines of cosmetics for Prescriptives, MAC, and Isabella Rossellini); advertisements (The Gap, LA Eyeworks, Naya Spring Water, Ilford Film); theater including I Could Go On Lip-Synching!, The Fabulous Lypsinka Show, Lypsinka! Now It Can Be Lip-Synched, Lypsinka! A Day In The Life (New York Theater Workshop, two Drama Desk nominations, including Most Unique Theatrical Experience; revived in 1993 Off Broadway at The Cherry Lane Theate), Lypsinka! As I Lay Lip-Synching, Lypsinka Must Be Destroyed!, Lypsinka IS Harriet Craig!, Lypsinka! The Boxed Set (2001 Drama Desk nomination, Washington, D.C. Helen Hayes Award win for Outstanding Non-Resident Production / Outstanding Lead Actor nomination, wins for Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle Award, Best Sound Design and L.A. Weekly Theatre Award for Best Solo Performance); and special events (such as Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, on Broadway with Bette Midler, Elaine Stritch and Patti LuPone, and London's Meltdown Festival curated by Morrissey).

Formerly a rehearsal pianist at American Ballet Theater, Mr. Epperson's theatrical career was launched in the mid-1980s when he wrote the book, lyrics and music of Ballet Of The Dolls and Dial "M" For Model at La Mama ETC. 1999 brought Epperson's dramatic stage debut in Messages For Gary at The New York Fringe Festival. In 2004 Mr. Epperson appeared Off Broadway in The Roaring Girle with The Foundry Theatre. The same year he was the subject of a stage festival at DC's Studio Theatre, which included his autobiographical piece John Epperson: Show Trash, As I Lay Lip-Synching, and his play, My Deah: Medea For Dummies, the Medea tale set in The New South. Also in 2004 Epperson played The Stepmother in the New York City Opera production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. The play My Deah opened in an Obie Award-winning production Off Broadway in October 2006 and is now published and licensed by Samuel French.

His acclaimed Off-Broadway show The Passion of the Crawford, a fantasia on the personality of Joan Crawford, toured to California, Florida and Washington, D.C. Lypsinka launched the 2007 Spring collection of MAC Cosmetics centered around the Barbie doll. Epperson's version of James Kirkwood's infamous play Legends! was produced at Studio Theatre in DC, Summer 2010. In 2011 Lypsinka performed in a Fifth Avenue window of Bergdorf Goodman as a launch for fashion week. Epperson and Lypsinka are the subjects of an Emmy-winning television documentary for PBS. He provided the preface for the Rizzoli photo book Persona, and is the author of a new screenplay Happy Everything. Mr. Epperson has also written for The Guardian (U.K.), The New York Times, The Washington Post and Interview and The Daily Beast. The sequel to My Deah is in the works. For more information, visit www.lypsinka.com.

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