Fay Jacobs is returning to New Hope with her one-woman show, “Ageing Gracelessly: 50 Shades of Fay,” which humorously tells the story of marriage equality in the United States.
Jacobs is an award-winning author with decades of writing experience — and who never imagined taking to the bright lights of a live stage until her experiences with book-reading events changed her mind.
“I got into show business at an age where I’m more likely to break a hip,” she quipped. “I have five books out, and I would go to book events and read my work and people would say, ‘You should be a standup comic.’ I started doing reading events in Rehoboth Beach and in Florida, and the next thing I knew, people were asking me to come to their LGBT community centers and book conferences. In the last three years, I’ve done 50 or 60 shows.”
Jacobs said that going from the solitary and somewhat isolated experience of writing books and articles to entertaining large groups of people was a thrilling change of pace.
“When I first started doing the readings, I was quite surprised at the immediacy of the laughter. It was kind of surprising and it made me want to see if I could put this thing together without just one part of the story, but the whole story. It became a show about LGBT equality and the march toward it.
“I’ve been writing a column for Camp Rehoboth for 20 years. I’ve also written for the Washington Blade and The Advocate over the years. It’s very interesting to see your work come together into one piece. Portions of it are serious but mostly it’s just fun.”
Fun, in regard to the struggle for marriage equality, has been in short supply in the last two years, as the Trump administration reverses the progress made during Obama’s terms. Jacobs said she altered the show to reflect the present moment.
“The ending had to change, and I’m working on that. It changes every day. The history of it goes from the 1970s through the 2015 marriage-equality ruling, and a little bit beyond. One of the things that I’m doing for this show in New Hope is rewriting a new ending.”
Jacobs said there’s still a lot of joy and wonder in performing because of her audiences.
“One of the things I find astounding is when I do a show and there are a lot of young LGBT people in the audience. They are amazed at the parts of history they didn’t know. It’s a great way to pass on our history to the younger generations that need to know these things, and how we got certain things done and what it was like in the ’70s and ’80s. I’m really proud of that. It’s entertaining while showing what life was like along the way.”
Fay Jacobs performs 8 p.m. Oct. 19 at The Rrazz Room at the Clarion Hotel, 6426 Lower York Road, New Hope. For more information or tickets, visit www.therrazzroom.com.