Faith Soloway

Faith Soloway (born March 28, 1964) is a folk-rock musician, comedic performer, and creator of several folk-rock musicals, based in the Boston area. She studied theater at Indiana University and performed improv comedy regularly, along with leaving school to tour with Second City. She spent three years as music director for Second City, which led to the creation of Soloway's first original musical, "The Real Life Brady Bunch". The show, which premiered in 1990, was a collaboration with her sister, Jill Soloway, and it toured across the country. Both Soloway sisters moved to Hollywood briefly to produce television shows, but Faith Soloway decided she was not interested in television work and in 1994, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to pursue a songwriting career.

After performing at open mike nights as a solo musician, Soloway began producing a series of rock operas that were performed at Club Passim. She started with the minimalist "The Principle and the Pauper", which was followed by "Jesus Has Two Mommies" (the title refers to the controversial children's book "Heather Has Two Mommies"), which featured such notable Boston folk musicians as Catie Curtis, Jennifer Kimball, and Mary Gauthier. This was followed by "Miss Folk America" (which featured what became one of Soloway's signature songs, "Queer in Revere" and "Debbie Does Falcon Ridge", both of which parodied the folk scene. In 2000, Soloway produced "Miss Folk America" at the Somerville Theater, a larger venue. In 2005, Soloway and company are mounting a production of "The F Word", a parody of the television show "The L Word".

Soloway also works at Charles River Creative Arts Program in the summer, in the theater and music departments. For the camp, she has written the musicals "Norbert Beany is Action Man" and "Hamletta" with Tom Evans. She teaches Cowbell Vaudeville, Production, Musical Theatre Troupe, and Rock Opera.

Soloway's lone solo album, "Training Wheels", features her song "Lesbo Song", which is at once a statement of her sexuality and a tweaking of the earnest, humorless stereotype of women's music. Her song "Sister's Boyfriend" was featured on the "Respond" compilation, a benefit for domestic violence causes. She continues to perform with her band, the Faith Soloway Crisis.

Soloway's ex-partner, writer Harlyn Aizley, wrote a book entitled "Buying Dad" about the couple's efforts to conceive a child via artificial insemination (their daughter Betsy was born in 2002). Soloway wrote an essay, "Betsy Loves Bobbies", that will appear in a forthcoming anthology edited by Aizley, "The Other Mother: Tales from the Lesbian Home-front, or, Nonbiological Mothers Tell All". After the couple separated, Soloway started work on a new show, "Journey to the Self: One Woman’s Self Journey".

Discography

* "Jesus Has Two Mommies" (soundtrack) (2001)
* "Miss Folk America" (soundtrack)
* "Training Wheels" (EP)

External links

* [http://www.faithsoloway.com/ Official web site]