Sup Doc: A Documentary Film Podcast
Ep 3 THE IMPOSTER with writer/actor Beth Lisick
Paco and George sit down with NYC writer/actor Beth Lisick. They talk about The Imposter and Frédéric Bourdin, plus con-artists, mysteries, butts, and much more! Beth Lisick is a writer and actor. She is the author of five books and has appeared in films screened at Cannes, Sundance, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Her books include the memoir collection Yokohama Threeway and Other Small Shames, the New York Times bestselling comic memoir Everybody Into the Pool, the gonzo self-help manifesto Helping Me Help Myself, the story collection This Too Can Be Yours, and the performance poetry/story collection Monkey Girl.
The Imposter is a 2012 British-American documentary film about the 1997 case of the French confidence trickster Frédéric Bourdin, who impersonated Nicholas Barclay, a Texas boy who disappeared at the age of 13 in 1994. The film includes interviews with Bourdin and members of Barclay’s family, as well as archive television news footage and reenacted dramatic sequences.
Beth Lisick is a writer and actor. She is the author of five books and has appeared in films screened at Cannes, Sundance, and the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Her books include the memoir collection Yokohama Threeway and Other Small Shames, the New York Times bestselling comic memoir Everybody Into the Pool, the gonzo self-help manifesto Helping Me Help Myself, the story collection This Too Can Be Yours, and the performance poetry/story collection Monkey Girl.
With a grant from the Creative Work Fund, she has collaborated on a chapbook series with the artists at Creativity Explored, a studio and gallery for artists with developmental disabilities in San Francisco. The collection, Tell You What, was released throughout 2013.
Her acting credits include leading roles in Frazer Bradshaw’s Everything Strange and New, which won the FIPRESCI critics’ prize, was nominated for the Spirit and Gotham awards, and screened at festivals including Sundance and Karlovy Vary; Joey Izzo’s Stepsister, which screened at San Francisco International and Cannes in 2013.
Since 1999 she has been collaborating with writer/comedian Tara Jepsen on stage and video projects. They have performed at Dixon Place, UCB Theatre, SF MOMA and screened their films at OUTfest, Frameline, and the Mix Film Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paulo, Brasil. They have opened for Tig Notaro, Neil Hamburger, and Dave Hill. Their web series Rods and Cones will debut in 2014.
Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Best American Poetry, Post-It Note Diaries, Yes Is The Answer, The Speed Chronicles, and the Outlaw Bible of American Literature.
In 2002, she created the Porchlight Storytelling Series with Arline Klatte, a monthly storytelling show in San Francisco.
She has spoken or performed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Hammer Museum, Shakespeare and Company, the Guggenheim Museum, Stanford University, Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi, Lollapalooza, the Lilith Fair, Brown University, University of Arizona Poetry Center, and other places; and has been in residence at CESTA in Tabor, Czech Republic and the RADAR Lab in Akumal, Mexico.
She has conducted onstage interviews with writers and actors, including Dave Eggers, Mary Roach, Amy Sedaris, Elijah Wood, Evan Rachel Wood, and Zoe Saldana, for City Arts and Lectures, Litquake, SF International Film Fest and the SF Sketchfest. Performing excerpts of her writing, she has opened for Neil Young, Allen Ginsberg, Lydia Lunch, and Exene Cervenka. She has been a guest on the Rachael Ray Show, NPR’s Talk of the Nation,This American Life, and The California Report.
Beth has a degree in American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. A native of the Bay Area, she currently lives in Brooklyn.
