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Westport Country Playhouse to Host Benefit Reading of New Play by Lisa Lampanelli
By: Tyler Peterson Feb. 05, 2016
The cast will include Lampanelli as well as Broadway actress Lisa Howard, TV and film veteran Patricia Kalember, and newcomer Jessica Luck.
"Fat Girls, Interrupted" tackles weight, body image, and food issues from the perspective of four very different women with four very different problems. Delivered both in monologues and as interactions between the characters, the stories the four women tell are full of humor, soul, passion, and will resonate with everyone who has struggled with food issues---or indeed, an addiction or compulsion of any kind.
"The play will do for weight and food issues what 'The Vagina Monologues' did for women's nether-regions," said Lampanelli.
Comedian/writer/actor Lisa Lampanelli is best-known as "Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean." "Fat Girls, Interrupted" is the first in a series of four plays she is penning about important issues to women. A regular on Sirius satellite radio's "The Howard Stern Show," Lampanelli has appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Late Show with David Letterman," "Chelsea Lately," "Jimmy Kimmel?Live," "The Dr. Oz Show," and "Good Morning America." She was also a member of the cast of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," Season 5, raising $130,000 for her charity, the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Ms. Lampanelli has also been nominated twice for Grammy Awards for "Best Comedy Album," and has six, one-hour televised specials, including her HBO special, "Long Live The Queen."
Lisa Howard was recently seen on Broadway in the new musical comedy "It Shouda Been You," directed by David Hyde Pierce. Other Broadway credits include "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," "9 to 5," Lincoln Center's revival of "South Pacific," and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," for which she won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. She made her feature film debut in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2."
Patricia Kalember has appeared at Westport Country Playhouse in "A Marriage Minuet," and Script in Hand play-readings. On Broadway, she was in "Don't Dress for Dinner," "Losing Louie," "The Nerd," and "The Foreigner," for which she was an Outer Critic's Circle Award nominee. New York credits include "The Vagina Monologues." Her films include "Limitless" and "Rabbit Hole," and among her television credits are "Olive Kitteridge," "Orange Is the New Black," and series regular on "Sisters," "thirtysomething," and "Kay O'Brien."
Jessica Luck's recent New York credits include "The Blood Brothers," "The Quake," "Buddy Becker's Uncut Flick," and "Vice Girl Confidential." She is a graduate of Yale College and a current Rockwell scholar at Primary Stages/ESPA. She can be seen in two comedy web series, "Down Dog" and "Carolers," and regularly performs with the rock band My Dear Mycroft and the improv team The Jessicas.
All artists are subject to change. The play contains adult language. Additional material in the play was contributed by Ashley Austin Morris.
Tickets are $25 (tier three seating), $50 (tier two), and $100 (tier one and post-reading "Meet the Cast" dessert reception in the Playhouse's White Barn Center). The reading runs 90-minutes with no intermission.
Proceeds will benefit Lampanelli's chosen charity The Center for Family Justice in Bridgeport, CT. The organization strives to break the cycle of abuse and violence - domestic, sexual, and child - by providing services that create hope, restore lives, and drive social change through education and community collaboration.
The event committee includes Roe Chlala, Galia Gichon Clemens, Mary Dobson, Jill Fitzburgh, Jerri Graham, Jane Green, Anne Keefe, Nancy Lessard, Joan Nevin, Kathy Oberman, Anna Rodrigues, Bari Alyse Rudin, Diane Sembrot, Marjorie Treisman, Allison Ziering Walmark, and Nancy Wilson.
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