Joan Liman, MD, MPH, MC*
212-308-1130
joanliman@aol.com
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ACTIVITIES
Through her company, LimanAde Productions, Joan Liman seeks to nurture life-affirming plays and musicals by offering the use of her home as a salon for emerging playwrights who need assistance in bringing such work "from the page to the stage." Some of the readings she has hosted are Eatonville, a play with music based on the Zora Neale Hurston novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ava, a two-person show about the latter years in the life of Ava Gardner, A Musical Journey with the Songs of Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill and Charles Aznavour and Vivien (based on the life of Vivien Leigh). She also held fundraisers for two shows that went on to be presented in NYMF: The Shaggs, the true-life story of a girl band from New Hampshire and Unlock'd, based on the story The Rape of the Lock.
In addition to running LimanAde Productions as a labor of love, Joan also volunteers her services to several other organizations. In 2006, Joan was selected by the American Cancer Society as an Eastern Division Ambassador to "Celebration on the Hill," a national effort to inform members of Congress and state elected officials about issues important to cancer. Traveling to Washington, DC in September 2006 to take part in a day-long lobbying campaign that was headquartered on the Washington Mall was a thrilling moment in her life. As a two-time cancer survivor, she felt very privileged to participate in the "Survivor's Walk" around the reflecting pool and take part in all the other memorable activities that constituted a truly momentous "celebration" in our nation's capital.
When not advocating on behalf of cancer prevention and research, Joan devotes what's left of her spare time to volunteering in the NYC Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), Health Professionals Helping NYC. She is also an active member of the NYMC Alumni Association. In 1984, she established a yearly award in her name to be given to a graduating student who performed well in medical school after having had a distinguished career in another field. It soon came to be known as "The Better Late Than Never Award" and she returns to her alma mater every year on Senior Honors Day to present it to the recipient. The 2006 recipient, who had been a successful graphic designer before deciding to become a doctor, was so touched by receiving this honor that she subsequently wrote to Joan volunteering to co-fund the award in the years to come.
Touching the lives of others through these charitable endeavors as well as through the life-affirming theatrical pieces she is privileged to help shepherd from "the page to the stage" has been a source of tremendous fulfillment for Joan. Having overcome non-Hodgkins lymphoma in her mid-thirties only to develop breast cancer the year she turned fifty, Joan has learned to make her own special brand of lemonade out of lemons by adhering to the philosophy that when something bad happens to you, "don't be defined in it, find the divine in it." She hopes that future productions of her musical memoir, "A LimanAde Life" will inspire audiences to do the same.
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"Three "Soirees" of my mini-presentation of A MUSICAL JOURNEY WITH THE SONGS OF JACQUES BREL, KURT WEILL AND CHARLES AZNAVOUR at Joan Liman's Garden apartment were everything . . . and more than I had hoped for. The space is very supportive of creative energy. . . and audiences responded most favorably to being there. No one could ever go wrong planning an event in Joan's space. . . because of the adaptability. . . AND her piano is always in tune!"
-- Vickie Phillips
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