Pat Bond was a pioneer lesbian performer. She began performing after her moving and funny interview in the 1977 documentary on gay people, Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives. She toured the country with her solo shows, beginning in 1979. For most members of the audience, it was the first time they had ever seen an out lesbian performer.
Gerty Gerty Gerty Stein Is Back Back Back was her most popular performance. She played the legendary Gertrude Stein and recounted humorous stories of Gertrude’s life in Paris with her lover Alice B. Toklas. The show was a huge success and was televised repeatedly on PBS stations across the country. Her other well-known stage shows were Conversations with Pat Bond, centering mainly on reminiscences of her wild youth in San Francisco; Murder in the WAC, focusing on the Army’s lesbian purge in the late 1940; and Lorena Hickock and Eleanor Roosevelt: A Love Story. (Wikipedia) This last play inspired my own play on the subject of Hick and Eleanor.