I LOVED LUCY Comes to Helsinki Hudson

"I Loved Lucy," a theatrical memoir adapted for the stage by Lee Tannen, author of the book of the same title, gets a one-night-only staging at Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday, August 24, at 8:30pm. The two-character play, celebrating show-biz icon Lucille Ball, stars Sandra Dickinson in the title role. Tannen will play himself.

Few people knew Lucille Ball the way Lee Tannen did. Distantly related by marriage, Lee met Lucy while he was still a child but cemented their close and enduring friendship as an adult during the last decade of Lucy's life - years mostly spent out of the spotlight and around a backgammon table.

Director Anthony Biggs says, "Lee Tannen's relationship with Lucy covers the last ten years of her life, but of course it is heavily influenced by what happened for both of them in the preceding years."

Biggs continues, "Lucy wasn't just a consummate comedienne. She was a trailblazer. As film was on the wane, she was one of the first of the new television stars in the fifties. She owned her own TV studio at a time when sexism was rife. She was married to a Cuban at a time when diplomatic tension between Cuba and America was escalating. And she was still performing in her seventies."

Tannen says that"I Loved Lucy" -- named one of the top 10 plays in London by Broadway World and produced by Gary DiMauro - is "a loving and candid portrait of a woman of prodigious gifts and complexities. A valentine to my very own 'Auntie Mame'."

"Although we were almost forty years apart in age, we were the closest and dearest of friends in the last decade of her life. Most people who wrote about Lucy never really knew her. They relied on others who did to fill in the blanks. I relied solely on Lucy."

Tickets includes a post-show reception with champagne and dessert.

For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800. For the most up-to-date concert information, visit www.helsinkihudson.com.

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