Interview: Andrew Lippa of I AM ANNE HUTCHINSON/I AM HARVEY MILK at Music Center At Strathmore

Andrew Lippa was one of the first people I met in New York. I'd long admired his work, was a regular listener of my John & Jen, and Wild Party cast recordings, and was notably star struck.

Andrew has had a prolific career as a writer, from the above mentioned Off-Broadway favorites, to supplying additional material for the You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown revival, as well as music & lyrics for Broadway's Big Fish and The Addams Family. Now he's taken on two of our country's greatest civil rights legends, gay rights activist Harvey Milk, and women's rights activist Anne Hutchinson

I had the chance to chat with Andrew about his 2 pieces being performed this week at The Strathmore right here in North Bethesda, MD.

JM: I always like to start by asking people if they've worked in DC before?

AL: No, not at all. I haven't even sung in a Bar Mitzvah there. I dont believe I've ever done anything in DC and i just love that town. Wait...I'm lying. I played one song for Kristin Chenoweth for something at the Kennedy Center, and then had a dinner on the stage of the Eisenhower Theater and I was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dinner partner. I called my husband and asked him for 5 things I need to know about her. I walked in, sat next to her, and said "Justice Ginsburg, I'm very honored to sit next to you this evening," and she nodded her head.

All she wanted to talk about art and architecture and travel and all I wanted to talk about was politics. Needless to say, we didn't talk much about politics.

JM: It's a pretty amazing time for LGBT equality. My husband and I helped organize the rallies outside the Supreme Court around the Prop 8 and DOMA hearings. What's it like to be telling Harvey Milk's story during this important time?

AL: Bruce Cohen is one of our lead producers (Academy Award winner for Big Fish and American Beauty). He's also deeply involved in politics, LGBT causes. Bruce was with Dustin Lance Black and Rob Reiner working on the Prop 8 cases - he helped create the case - he hired the lawyers and raised the money for it.

We premiered I Am Harvey Milk just two blocks from city hall, where he was killed. Bruce was in DC that morning on Wednesday the 26th of June, 2013, got on a plane and came back to see our premiere.

On friday of that week, women plaintiffs, (California Secretary of State) Kamala Harris said she would perform marriages. She did it right there in city hall in San Francisco. There was this phone tree that went up through the Gay Men's Chorus of San Francisco (who had performed the show earlier that week), and they showed up and sang for the ceremony.

I became an ordained interfaith minister three days before the I Am Harvey Milk premiere. Though Harvey wasn't particularly spiritual, I know he was with us that day.

JM: So this is personal for you...

AL: We were married during that 5 month period in 2008 when marriages were legal in California and before Prop 8 was passed. So for our 10th anniversary we flew to LA to get married. It just took 5 more years for the federal government to see us as married.

The other thing that's really part of the Harvey Milk story is my desire to find a character in history, who was different, but related.

I realized ultimately what it was I was writing about Harvey Milk, and I wanted to write again when it came to religious experience in America.

JM: So you chose Anne Hutchinson...

AL: Yes, when Anne Hutchinson faced her accusers in a 7 year old Massachusetts, she was accused of enabling women and teaching them how to read. She was the second most powerful person in the Massachusetts Bay Colony after John Winthrop (the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony). It's very much the same story as Harvey's, just different details. They were both civil libertarians who said 'I can't sit back any more and accept the way things are.' This is the history of the world. This is about people who stood up and said things cant be this way anymore.

JM: I know about Anne Hutchinson, but I feel like that's primarily because I grew up in Massachusetts. She doesn't seem to be a known part of our history, though.

AL: How we still don't know who Anne Hutchinson is, is remarkable to me. The list of women being passed around to put on the face of the $10 bill is huge and Anne Hutchinson never shows up. She stood up when women were never allowed to stand up.

There's a song called "The Chair." Women literally were not allowed to sit in chairs. Men would say to her "I've seen you. I've walked by your window and seen you sitting in your chair. That's what men do. Only men sit in the chair."

How absurd is it in our culture, women earn 20% less than men? We don't have women in leadership, how many women are praised as major sports figures? It's 2016.

There's so clearly a cultural bias. What is it about women that frightens us? Should they still subservient to men? It's despicable. If i can shed a little light on it and tell people there is no Harvey Milk without Anne Hutchinson, I'll be happy. It's always about our progenitors. It has to be. This is why it matters.

JM: I appreciate that you use your position and your art to bring attention to important issues, has that been a challenge at all?

AL: The text on Jason Robert Brown's Twitter account says "I won't vote for a presidential candidate that wont advocate sensible gun laws." The notion that I have to stand up as a member of the LGBTQ community. I'm a gay man. I' not going to vote anyone into office in North Carolina who is going to take my rights away. That's a political statement. If I say that, if that prevents someone from coming to see my musicals, so be it. Boycott me.

I Am Anne Hutchinson/I Am Harvey Milk takes place Saturday, April 23, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, April 24, at 4 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Tickets are $39 to $99. Call 301-581-5100 or visit strathmore.org.

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