Meet Jane Doe's Jayne -- She's Jayne Muirhead: Singer-Actress And Co-Founder Of Jane Doe Theatre

Jayne Muirhead is used to wearing two hats at once.

Imagine one is a perky little velvet number with feathers and a veil. Or maybe a jaunty straw bonnet.

Those might be signature chapeaus for Jayne Muirhead, the effervescent singer-actress. She opens next Thursday in "Sirens of Swing," a revue of '40s big-band tunes that also features Joanne Klein, Karen Kay Cody, and Muirhead's pianist husband, John Engerman. (It's at Cabaret de Paris through September 24; call 623-4111.)

Muirhead's other hat has to be something more utilitarian - say a simple khaki cap. It's for the hard-working co-founder of the grass-roots, year-old drama troupe, Jane Doe Theatre.

A shoestring operation dedicated to presenting new scripts by and about women, Jane Doe runs on the unpaid idealism and elbow grease of Muirhead and cohorts Meleesa Knappert, Elizabeth Kaye and Barbara Callendar - with help from a cadre of drop-by volunteers. Next Friday, while Muirhead is crooning Boswell Sisters ditties, Jane Doe launches into its second season at Theatre Off Jackson with a two-week run of "Bite the Moon," a solo play by writer-actress Maria Glanz. (Details: 285-7141.)

Both endeavors delight Muirhead, a vivacious gal in her early 40s. She explains that the non-doctrinaire Jane Doe "is dedicated to promoting opportunities for women in theater. It's not our intention to do plays only by women, but we do want to give them a place to workshop things, to grow, to succeed, even to fail. Those chances don't happen too often for women playwrights."

Foremost a performer

If Muirhead ever had to choose between acting and producing, however, performing would come first. "I'm going through a kind of lull right now in my stage career, because there are so few roles for women after they reach 40," she reflects. "I guess one of the reasons I got involved in Jane Doe was to create more chances to do my own work."

Though the acting gigs may not be plentiful these days, Muirhead has clocked in a lot of roles since moving here from Bellingham in 1979.

She counts among her favorites the title figure in "Evita" at Civic Light Opera ("Everyone should get to play a queen at least once"), the English expectant mother and eco-warrior in "It's a Girl!" at Group Theatre, and a lascivious maid in the long-running "Rocky Horror Show" at Empty Space Theatre.

The Jane Doe project began a couple of years ago, when Muirhead wanted to direct Seattle writer Mary Lathrop's dizzy comedy about childbirth, "Dreams of Baby."

"Mary and I showed it to several theaters and none were interested," she recounts. The literary manager at one major company rejected the piece because "he said nothing happens in it. Nothing but a woman going through pregnancy and labor!"

So Lathrop and Muirhead took matters into their own hands. They held fund-raising teas, got small grants from the state and city arts commissions, staged a smash cabaret benefit at the Backstage called "Divas on Parade." (It's now an annual event.)

With a slender $25,000 budget, Muirhead mounted "Dreams of Baby" at Theatre Off Jackson. Reviews for the wacky farce were laudatory, and enough people bought tickets "to put us in the black, amazingly enough."

Audition piece led to `Bite the Moon'

The upcoming "Bite the Moon" is one of four shows Jane Doe plans for the coming year, if funding pans out. It came to the group's attention when author Maria Glanz auditioned for a role in "Dreams of Baby."

She didn't get cast, but Muirhead was so impressed with Glanz's original audition piece she asked to see more of her writing.

A recent transplant from Honolulu, Glanz has performed another one-woman show, "The Sonja Cafe" at the Fringe Theatre Festival and New City. But she was "thrilled" to link up with a woman-oriented theater.

Glanz describes "Bite the Moon" as "the story of a small-town 14-year-old girl who steps over that line from childhood to adulthood. It's about the shattering of her childhood illusions, but that happens in a spiritual, hopeful, redemptive way."

"There are lot of coming of age stories for guys, but this is for women," adds Muirhead. "Look, I don't want to discount anything men have done! We just need plays from a woman's point of view, too."