Jean Lippincott encourages and inspires in upcoming production of "Prelude to a Kiss"

If you’ve been to Prescott and you haven’t yet encountered Jean Lippincott, look out. The actress/director/acting teacher/retiree lives in Prescott with her husband, Mike, and beloved dogs, Katie and Elise, and she is a big personality within the small town’s theatre community. “I knew at five years old that I wanted to be an actress,” she says, “but it’s not very practical, so I went on and did other things. Then when I retired, I got to do all I wanted to do.” Lippincott has not been one to waste time pursuing her dreams; she arrived in Prescott one Friday in 1999, and the following Tuesday, she had landed a role in the Prescott Fine Arts Association’s (PFAA) production of The Uninvited. This month, Lippincott has returned to PFAA to direct Prelude to a Kiss, a play in two acts by Craig Lucas.

Lippincott gives a lively description of the play’s plot and her initial vision for telling the story. Try to imagine her breathless excitement as you read the following quote: “It’s about a young woman who’s really afraid of life, she’s just very scared of life, and she meets this guy who falls in love with her and wants to protect her. So they fall in love and get married, and an old man wanders in to the reception and says he wants to kiss the bride. And when he kisses her, something happens, and they switch souls. Peter, who is our young man, (although in our production he’s not so young), goes on his honeymoon with the old man who looks like Rita – the bride – her spirit somehow went into the old man’s body, and the old man’s went into hers. So I got to thinking, well, gee, if we have to stage this embodying of the spirit, how would you do that – maybe we could move it to New Orleans, and it could be a voodoo spirit.” Did you catch that? You might want to read through it again; Lippincott thinks fast. “We’ve done a lot of fun things with it – it’s going to look great,” she says happily.

When asked why she decided to direct Prelude to a Kiss, Lippincott admits it’s not an easy answer. She had seen the screenplay and enjoyed it, thinking it was “cute, but not wonderful,” and then discovered there was a version for the stage. When she read the script, her initial response was, “Yuck! This is boring!” She threw it on her pile of scripts she thought she’d never use, but revisited it again a few years later when she was teaching her acting class in Prescott. “I re-read it, and I said ‘yuck’ again,” she says. “But by that time, I was directing, and it suddenly hit me that there was nothing in the script - and because of that, it’s a director’s dream, because you can just create.” Hence the New Orleans setting for the production, which Lippincott believes will be quite interesting for PFAA crowds. “It’s a little edgy,” she confesses, “but not too edgy. It’s all in a black box setting, and the gal goes home and has sex with the guy when she meets him – we’re gonna hear about that!”

The effervescent Lippincott has lent her enthusiasm to many artistic endeavors in Prescott. She has been teaching acting classes since 2001, and now has waiting lists lined with students hoping to get into her class. She has served on the Play Selection Committee at PFAA, and has also exhibited her visual works in PFAA’s art gallery. Her preferences lean toward acting and directing, however; she has enjoyed acting since studying and performing at Santa Monica College in Southern California before coming to Prescott. When asked if she will be seen onstage again any time soon, Lippincott replies that she gets her “vicarious thrills” through teaching her acting students, but that she may audition for PFAA’s upcoming production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. “I’d love to get back onstage,” she says.

Lippincott has many points of pride with her production of Prelude to a Kiss, in particular the strength of her actors. “Paul Epoch (in the role of Peter) is just great, but the person who is just making my heart glow with pride is Becky Mills (in the role of Rita), an acting student of mine, who is really green and raw and just finding her chops,” says Lippincott excitedly. In casting, she decided to take a risk on Mills despite knowing the actress had only been onstage once before. “She has blossomed into one hell of a little actress… you can see why Peter gets attracted to her, she’s so cute, and you can really create these, well, steamy love scenes, and as the old man she is just hysterical. We are all so proud of her. I went with my gut, and it paid off! It’s like being a mother!”

Lippincott is a great example of a woman who ‘follows her gut’ and says exactly what is on her mind. Her irrepressible humor and passion for her projects make her an important presence in Prescott’s artistic community. To re-iterate: if you haven’t yet crossed paths with this woman, look out! She is unforgettable – and it’s likely that her production of Prelude to a Kiss will embody her memorable spirit.

Performances of Prelude to a Kiss will run September 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 & 19 at 7:30 p.m., and September 13 & 19 at 2:00 p.m. Advance ticket purchase is advised. Please visit the PFAA website at www.pfaa.net for information and reservations. If you like what you see here, refer to the top of this page to sign up for notifications of Mary Spence’s articles and other Examiner.com information.