THIS IS US Star Chrissy Metz to Lead FAT PIG Benefit Reading - With New Ending - for MCC Theater

MCC Theater has announced a one-night-only benefit reading of Neil LaBute's play, Fat Pig, directed by LaBute, to be held on Sunday, March 5, 2017 at 7PM at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street).

MCC previously presented the world premiere production of Fat Pig during the 2004-2005 Season and, in celebration of its 30th Anniversary Season, looks forward to bringing this hit from the past back - with a new ending.

This benefit reading will be led by Chrissy Metz, a recent Golden Globe nominee for her role on the hit drama "This Is Us" on NBC. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

Neil LaBute, MCC's Playwright-in-Residence, has premiered 10 of his plays at MCC during the course of his illustrious career, most recently in Fall 2016 with his dazzling All The Ways To Say I Love You, featuring Judith Light's solo tour de force performance. During his 15-year collaboration with MCC, LaBute has also premiered his seminal plays: Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, The Distance from Here, and reasons to be pretty, the latter of which transferred to Broadway and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.

"Neil is inarguably one of the major and most provocative voices in contemporary drama. It's been our great honor to collaborate with him on 10 - yes, 10! - full-length plays and other works over the last 15 years," said Co-Artistic Director Robert LuPone, speaking on behalf of the company's artistic leadership. "We are thrilled that in our 30th Anniversary Season Neil is bringing one of his major works, Fat Pig, back to MCC where it started over a decade ago - this time with a brand-new ending. His approach - where the material is living, breathing, ever-evolving - is a hallmark of our enduring partnership and of MCC's most rewarding partnerships over the years."

Cow. Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who also happens to be plus-sized. Forced to explain his new relationship to his friends who think that size does matter, Tom faces an impossible choice in Fat Pig, LaBute's "most emotionally engaging and unsettling play" (The New York Times).

Tickets are currently on sale to donors and patrons for this benefit reading. Prices range from $75-$150. For tickets, visit www.mcctheater.org or call (212) 352-3101.

MCC Theater's playwright development program, PlayLabs, helps foster the next generation of playwrights by providing writers intensive dramaturgical support early in their careers, as well as the opportunity to work alongside professional directors and actors to engage public audiences in the development of new work. The PlayLabs reading series incorporates informal post-show gatherings for conversation between artists and audiences that enliven and stimulate the often solitary and insular writing and development process. Plays developed as part of PlayLabs have gone on to full productions at MCC, as well as at other nonprofit theaters in New York and overseas, adding vibrant new works to the contemporary theatrical cannon.

The company's education initiatives serve more than 1,200 public school students throughout New York each year through a mix of programs for students and teachers inside and outside the classroom. Employing the tools of theater alongside traditional academic and career-readiness, the programs empower young people to find and express their own voices, and become engaged citizens throughout and beyond their academic careers. Dedicated mentors provide students with support as they explore acting, writing, directing, and theater production alongside professionals in the field, and provide college- and career-readiness opportunities to complement the theater-focused initiatives.

The centerpiece of the institution's education programs is the MCC Theater Youth Company, the first free, after-school company of its kind associated with a professional theater. Since its founding in 2001 as an eight-member ensemble, the Youth Company has grown to serve more than 100 students each year and now includes a flagship Youth Company and satellite groups developed in partnership with schools in Washington Heights and Brooklyn.

MCC Theater broke ground on its first permanent home- a two-theater complex on West 52nd Street and 10th Avenue-on March 22, 2016. Set to open in 2018, the space will unite MCC's diverse roster of programs under one roof for the first time in the company's three-decade history. The new facility will also allow MCC to expand its programming and establish it as a cultural anchor within the Clinton neighborhood. The $35 million project is funded by a public-private partnership between the Theater and the City of New York, with $30 million raised to-date.

MCC is one of New York's leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, the tenets of collaboration, education, and community are at the core of MCC Theater's programming. One of the only theaters in the country led continuously by its founders, Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, and William Cantler, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

Plays and musicals developed by the company have gone on to stagings around the globe. Notable productions over the course of the company's 30-year history include Robert Askins' Hand to God, nominated for five Tony Awards and transferred to London's West End; Sharr White's The Other Place, starring Laurie Metcalf; The Submission by Jeff Talbot, winner of the inaugural Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for new American plays; Bryony Lavery's Frozen, a 2004 Tony nominee for Best play and winner for Brian F. O'Byrne's performance; Wit by Margaret Edson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999; the classic cult musical Carrie, which has gone on to international productions since the Theater's extensive redevelopment work and staging in 2012, the first in more than two decades; and ten plays by Playwright-in-Residence Neil LaBute, including Fat Pig; reasons to be pretty, a 2009 Tony nominee for Best Play; Reasons to Be Happy; and All The Ways To Say I Love You . Blake West joined the company in 2006 as Executive Director. MCC will open its first permanent home in 2018 in Manhattan's Clinton neighborhood, unifying the company's activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming. The Theater is currently in the midst of a $35 million campaign to support its expansion and growing artistic operations, with $30 million raised to-date.