feminist-lawyer-judge's
search for identity...
and justice
Upcoming Shows
Looking for Justice
(in all the wrong places) makes its return to the
San Francisco Marsh for a three show run.
NOV 29 · DEC 6 · DEC 13
San Francisco Marsh
1062 Valencia St
SUNDAYS AT 5 PM
Opening Guest Performances and Conversations
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Sunday, November 29th
Opener Christina Aanestad:
Experiences of a Jailed Woman
Christina Aanestad is a journalist, media maker, and the Evening News Anchor at KPFA radio in Berkeley. Christina shares her trials and tribulations that led to early incarceration and lessons learned in overcoming hardships. |
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Sunday, December 6th
Discussion with Janelle White
After-performance visioning session with the audience led by Amy and Janelle White, executive director of SF Women Against Rape, focusing on what justice would look like for survivors of sexual violence. |
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Sunday, December 13th
Opener Irma Herrera:
The ICEmen Cometh (an excerpt)
Irma Herrera is a writer, solo performer, and former civil rights lawyer. The ICEmen Cometh is a one-woman show exposing how the Trump Regime's war on immigrants is a war on all of us — as ICE terrorizes our communities, no one is safe. |
ABOUT THE SHOW
From the 1960’s till today, Amy befriends, loves and represents a wide slice of America, all the time returning to her first encounter with the justice system following the 1970 rape of a friend.
Amy’s lifelong search for racial and sexual justice is now a one woman show that debuted at fringe festivals in Washington DC and Minnesota in the summer of 2024 and at a Marsh Rising in December 2024. It was then performed at the Phoenicia Playhouse in upstate New York in May 2025.
The at times humorous and at times deadly serious show begins in Berkeley in the early 1970’s during second wave feminism. Amy finds her identity as a lesbian feminist, ultimately goes to law school to fight for women’s rights, then represents coal miners and battered women in Appalachia before returning to California to open a lesbian feminist law practice. She is representing women who had been sexually harassed – pre-Anita Hill – but keeps seeing all sides of things, becomes an administrative judge and founds a law firm to do impartial investigations of harassment and discrimination. She adopts two children – both biracial - and experiences racism up close and personal.
In the meantime, she can’t stop revisiting her first experience with the criminal justice system when she accompanied a friend to a rape trial. Her (white) friend had been raped by a (Black) boyfriend. The friend wanted him to get help, rather than serve a decade in prison. This restorative justice solution was not an option. Amy wonders about her role in the verdict and if real justice is possible in an unjust world.
Trigger warning:
The content of this production includes topics and events that may be triggering to some people including sexual violence/rape, sexual harassment, racism and familial violence.
After the last show an audience member wrote:
Some of deepest healing comes from telling the truth, being vulnerable and willingness to be witnessed. She did all 3!
REVIEWS
“ Hers is a heartbreaking, intimate, and memorable story. I recommend it.”
Aileen-johnson, DC THEATER ARTS
“Oppenheimer has put together a nuanced, thought-provoking show about the grayscale nature of justice.”
“Her show is charming, fun, and revealing.”
Robert M. Gardner, THEATRIUS
[Amy performs] with acute honesty, shrewd intelligence, soft humor, and more than a bit of poignancy”
Emily Mandel , CULTURE VULTURE
Past Performances
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DC Capital Fringe
July 12, 13, 14, 2024
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Minnesota FRiNGE
August 9, 10, 11, 2024
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Marsh Rising
Oct 29, 2024
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Congregation Beth-El
March 21, 2025
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Phoenicia Playhouse
May 31, 2025
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Berkeley Marsh
March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2026
About AMY
Amy Oppenheimer, a lesbian feminist lawyer and retired judge, has spent her 45-year legal career advocating for women and people of color and speaking truth to power. She is co-author of Investigating Workplace Harassment: How to be Fair, Thorough and Legal (SHRM 2002).
DAVID FORD
David Ford has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him the solo performer maven, the monologue maestro and the dean of solo performance. More about David