Free to be Friends

Free to be Friends, a stage version of the fictional 1972 regional children’s TV show hosted by lesbians Betty & Joan, picks up where Free to Be You and Me and The Magic Garden left off, then makes everything a little weirder.

Set on Betty and Joan’s Enchanted Patio, Free to Be Friends also stars poor, berate Shylock the Owl, a gorgeous owl puppet bedecked in retro-hued felt feathers. Sue Galloway plays Betty Maddox, a wide eyed blonde who came to the Enchanted Patio after being rescued from a macramé cult called the Macramaniacs. Her life partner, Joan Stein, used to be a school teacher in Great Neck, Long Island with a husband and kids, which she gladly discarded. Together, Betty and Joan guide children through an array of confusing topics with lessons from Joan’s aging mother and jokes from the Giggle Patch, teach kids that “Yoga is when you do anything you want in a leotard,” bake Self Esteem Cookies (“They’re as delicious as you think they deserve to be!”), and transparently attempt to cloak their radical left-wing politics with a veneer of feel good 70s cheer…all of which just adds up to confusion, and then, terrible violence.

“Part feel-good satire, part absurdist political critique.” – NY Blade

“Sue Galloway and Julie Klausner are hilarious. This is a really fun show with surprisingly exceptional set design. It has a Strangers With Candy sort of penchant for twisted one-liners and for its dark humour wrapped in a cheery outer layer.” – The Apiary