Silver Spring Stage Presents Fat Pig, 7/16-8/8

Silver Spring Stage presents Neil LaBute's searing satire on love and beauty Fat Pig, directed by Seth Ghitelman and produced by Brenda Ryan-Ghitelman, when a young man falls for a heavy woman and weighs the opinions of people around him with his own feelings. Fat Pig will perform weekends July 16 to August 8.

Silver Spring Stage is located in the Woodmoor Shopping Center, lower level (next to the CVS) at Colesville Road and University Boulevard. Ticket prices are $20 for adults and $18 for seniors/students. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sunday matinees on July 25 and August 8 at 2:00 PM. Tickets can be purchased at www.ssstage.org. Information is also available by calling (301) 593-6036.

Fat Pig humorously and surprisingly comments on the hold that perfection and what is deemed expected of us by others has over us. Neil LaBute is not a shy playwright. He goes right to the heart of human frailty and societal double standards. He seeks to be provocative, while writing with wit and insight. LaBute said, "I see a lot of myself in Fat Pig; whatever the name of the piece, the story really deals with human weakness and the difficulty many people face when trying to stand up for, live up to, or come out for something they believe in." Winner of the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play in 2005, Fat Pig is one of a trilogy on what LaBute calls "our fixation with physical beauty" along with The Shape of Things and the recent Reasons to Be Pretty. The boldness of Fat Pig is LaBute's posing of outward appearance dictating our inner selves and whether we have the ability to change what we dislike about ourselves. LaBute doesn't make it easy. In the play a character says, "We're all just one step away from being what frightens us. What we despise. So we despise it when we see it in anybody else." Yet along the way, Fat Pig gives audiences vivid characters, hilarious dialogue and experience not to be missed.

Tom (Ryan Manning), a young professional in a large city, falls for a very plus-size librarian named Helen (Elizabeth Klein). Tom is taken with her brash acceptance of the way people see her and her honesty. He asks her for her number and they start to date. A couple weeks Carter (Matt Baughman), Tom's best friend, starts to notice the signs of Tom having a new girlfriend. He pesters him for information about the new girl and in order to get it mentions it in front of a co-worker, Jeannie (Michelle Johncock), who has been seeing Tom on-and-off for a while. Jeannie gets very upset. Tom makes up a story that he's meeting business people from Chicago at a restaurant. Carter, not believing him, stops by the restaurant and sees them together. When Helen goes to the restroom, Carter insults Helen's weight. Later that week Jeannie confronts Tom that no people from Chicago were in town. Tom admits he's seeing Helen, which hurts and angers Jeannie. Carter sort of apologizes but then tries to convince Tom that he should "stick to his own kind." Audiences will be at the edge of their seats to find out what happens in this dark comedy.

The production team includes Santos Ventura (Assistant Director/Stage Manager), Mary Seng and Bob Thompson (Set Design), Chris Curtis (Light Design), Kevin Garrett (Sound Design), Rachel Feola (Costume Design), Sonya Okin (Props/Set Dressing) and Brian Dettling (Fight Director).

The Stage's 2010-2011 season opens with our annual One Act Festival (Aug. 19-29, sophisticated Private Lives (Sept. 24-Oct. 10), suspenseful Wait Until Dark (Oct. 29-Nov. 20), family special A Christmas Carol (Dec. 10-Dec. 19), engrossing Blackbird (Jan. 7-Jan. 29), passionate Romeo and Juliet (Feb. 18-Mar. 12), hilarious The Farndale Macbeth (Feb. 1-Feb. 23), elegant Three Days of Rain (May 13-Jun. 4), and exciting One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Jun. 24-July 23).

About Silver Spring Stage
Silver Spring Stage has provided quality, affordable theatre for over 40 years. We are an all-volunteer, non- profit organization and appreciate any contribution to enable us to offer excellent and entertaining productions. Thank you for your interest and support of Silver Spring Stage. All programs at Silver Spring Stage are made possible in part by grants from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and the Maryland State Arts Council.

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