Unicorn Theatre to Stage I'LL EAT YOU LAST: A CHAT WITH SUE MENGERS

I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers is a one-woman play about a ground-breaking Hollywood agent. For more than 20 years, Sue Mengers' clients were the biggest names in show business, and her dinner parties were the envy of Hollywood. Now, you're invited into her glamorous Beverly Hills home for an evening of dish, dirty secrets and all the inside showbiz details only Sue can tell you. Warning: This play contains profanity from a hard-drinking, pot-smoking catty Hollywood gossip! Sue had the scoop on all of her "twinkly" clients: Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Burt Reynolds, Ali MacGraw, Gene Hackman, Cher, Candice Bergen, Ryan O'Neal, Nick Nolte, Mike Nichols, Gore Vidal, Bob Fosse and more!

Critics have praised this play for the incisive way it draws back the curtain on how Hollywood stars are made. The writing of John Logan has been called "buoyant, witty" and "a delectable soufflé of a solo show" as "the tightly closed doors of the Beverly Hills aerie in which Mengers held court are being thrown open, and for the price of a ticket we all get to feel a little twinkly for a night" - Charles Isherwood, New York Times. This play has been celebrated as "80 irresistible minutes of primo tinseltown dish from a certified master chef" - David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter. Audience members should expect a "wickedly entertaining" evening filled with "killer quips and hysterical set pieces" - Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post.

I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers is a Season Extra on Unicorn Theatre's Jerome Stage located at 3828 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111. The show runs December 11th - 28th, 2014. Previews are December 11th and 12th. Opening Night is December 13th.

Performances run Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3:30 pm. There are two Thursday performances at 8:00 p.m. on December 11th and 18th. The week of Christmas, there will be no performances on December 24th and 25th, but there will be a Saturday matinee on December 27th at 3:30 p.m. If you are unable to afford a ticket, you may Pay What U Can at 8:00 p.m. performances on December 17th, 22nd and 23rd, because art is for everyone.

Tickets are now on sale. Tickets are not included in season ticket packages and must be purchased separately. Call 816-531-PLAY (7529) EXT. 10, go online at www.UnicornTheatre.org or buy in person at the box office located at 3828 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111. Special discounts are available for seniors (65+), students, and patrons under age 30.

Sidonie Garrett (DIRECTOR) is the Executive Artistic Director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival where she directed Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet (awarded Best Play by Pitch Magazine), Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, King Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Richard III, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and A Midsummer Night's Dream in rotating rep, As You Like It and The Winter's Tale (awarded Best Play by Pitch Magazine). Prior to joining the Festival, Sidonie worked as a freelance director. Her experience working with new plays took her to New York City, where she directed the off-off Broadway production of Thanatos. Sidonie also assistant directed the off-Broadway premiere of the interactive Aunt Chooch's Birthday Party. At the Unicorn Theatre she directed Other Desert Cities, The Motherf*&#%er With the Hat, Time Stands Still, In the Next Room: the vibrator play, Faith Healer, Rising Water, Iron Kisses, Retreat from Moscow, Omnium Gatherum, the world premiere of Thanatos, SubUrbia, The Waiting Room, Desert Holiday, Spinning Into Butter, SantaLand Diaries and co-directed Light/Damage with Cynthia Levin. For The Coterie she directed The Macbeth Project: In Spite of Thunder, the U.S. premiere of After Juliet, Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays, Little House on the Prairie, Little House by the Shores of Silver Lake, Of Mice and Men, Playing for Time and co-directed The Hobbit. Sidonie directed Rose's Dilemma and Greater Tuna for the gone, but not forgotten, American Heartland Theatre, Reckless and Too Clever By Half for UMKC's Rotating Repertory, and co-directed Tony & Tina's Wedding (Kansas City and St. Louis) for Fourth Wall Productions. With Elizabeth Suh Lane, for Bach Aria Soloists she co-created and directed Play On! a collaboration of music and words and Marriage of True Minds. Recently, she directed Eleemosynary at the Fishtank Performance Studio. In March 2015, she will direct The Merchant of Venice, presented by the Jewish Community Center and Johnson County Community College and in summer 2015, she will direct King Lear in Southmoreland Park. Sidonie is beyond happy to work with her friend Donna again. Thanks, Cynthia!

Donna Thomason (SUE) is thrilled to, again, be performing onstage at the Unicorn where she was last seen in The Little Dog Laughed. Previous Unicorn appearances include Convenience (with her late husband, Gary Holcombe) The Sister's Rosensweig, and Lips Together, Teeth Apart. Donna made her Broadway debut-a zillion years ago in Annie as Grace Farrell, resulting in over 2,000 performances of the show in New York and in subsequent National Tours...and a nasty aversion to the song, "Tomorrow." After returning to KC from New York, a couple of decades ago, Donna has split her time performing onstage with all professional Equity theatres in the city, directing professional theater and working for EPIC Events Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Starlight Theatre where she has served as its President & Creative Director for the past six years. Thomason's favorite on-stage appearances include: everything she's done at the Unicorn; all nine shows in which she has performed at Starlight Theatre; of the 10 performances with American Heartland Theatre in which she acted, Deathtrap was her favorite, and at the Missouri Rep (now KC Rep) it's a toss-up between 5 years in A Christmas Carol, ...Kindergarten or Comedy of Errors. Donna is not particularly discerning about such things. As a Director, Donna most enjoyed directing, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for Actor's Theatre; The Dixie Swim Club for AHT, and Annie for Starlight Theatre. She was privileged to serve as Producer for last summer's production of The Sound of Music for Starlight Theatre and especially loved having a hand in employing over 50 Kansas City actors in that mega production. Television and film credits include: All My Children, The Burden of Proof, CBS Mini Series; I Love You to Death co-starring with Brooke Shields; and the feature films Ride With The Devil, The Painting and Article 99. But it is EPIC Events, Inc. that comprises most of Thomason's time these days. The company creates and produces over 55 "shows" a year for corporate clients and NFP organizations in events across the country and around the Kansas City area, including events on-site at Starlight in the fall and winter months. In her work with EPIC, Thomason has scripted and produced over 14 videos that have been recipients of Telly Awards. But her first professional love will always be theatre and Donna is so very grateful to Cynthia Levin for giving her an opportunity to return to this side of the footlights alongside good buddy, Director Sidonie Garrett - and take on this one-woman show as AN ACTOR! Donna makes her home in KC with her beloved four-legged Gussie Lynn Holcombe Thomason and dedicates her return to the stage to her treasured Gary. On the ice again, hon. Crap....here we go!

The creative team for I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers is Kelsey Brennan York (stage manager), Gary Mosby (scenic designer), Alex Perry (lighting designer/technical director), David Kiehl (sound designer), Shawnna Journagan (properties designer) and Boni Newberry (dramaturg).

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