John Epperson (born April 24, 1955) is an American drag artist, actor, pianist, vocalist, and writer who is mainly known for creating his stage character Lypsinka.
As Lypsinka, he lip-synchs to meticulously edited, show-length soundtracks culled from snippets of outrageous 20th-century female performances in movies and song.
After graduating from Belhaven, he got a job playing piano in Colorado, but in 1978 he moved to New York City and became a full-time rehearsal pianist for the American Ballet Theatre in 1980.
[2] Lypsinka first appeared in 1982, and for the first time Off Broadway in September 1988 when Epperson's act was a late-night addition to the bill of Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York.
In Winter 2004, in a different drag role, Epperson played the Wicked Stepmother in the New York City Opera's revival of Rodgers-Hammerstein's Cinderella in a cast with Eartha Kitt, Dick Van Patten and Renée Taylor.
The second disc of the set also contains a short feature about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, titled Blind Ambition, with contributions from Busch and Epperson.
[citation needed] Epperson wrote a play, My Deah, his version of the Medea tale transplanted to Mississippi which debuted at the June Havoc Theater in New York in 2006.
[2] In 1999, Epperson appeared in a non-drag role in the critically acclaimed verbatim play Messages for Gary written by Patrick Horrigan and produced by Paul Lucas.
[5] Epperson appears in a speaking role in the 2010 film Black Swan as a rehearsal pianist for a fictional New York City ballet company.