Jewish Women's Theatre to Host its First-Ever Comedy Club Night: THREE JEWS AND A BLONDE WALK INTO THE BRAID

For one night only, Jewish Women's Theatre (JWT) will be transformed into a comedy club for two performances of Three Jews and a Blonde Walk into the Braid, a night of standup featuring Emmy Award-winning comedian Monica Piper and three of her very funny women friends.

Piper, an Abby Freeman JWT artist-in-residence favorite and creator of the off-Broadway hit Not That Jewish, said she has thought about doing a comedy club night at The Braid for many years. "We have so many incredibly talented people performing at the Braid, but they're mostly actors and there's a whole different side of performing that Braid audiences haven't seen.

"I've been doing stand-up for a long time and have met so many really funny people, especially women. And the women who are going to be performing for this show are great friends of mine and they are all hilarious," Piper noted with a smile.

She will be joined at The Braid on Saturday, December 14 for two shows, at 5:30pm and 8pm, by Cathy Ladman, Sue Kolinsky, and Debbie Kasper, who is the "Blonde" in the title and another JWT favorite. Tickets are $35 and may be purchased at www.jewishwomenstheatre.org.

Piper met and bonded with the other three comedians when they were all on the club circuit in the 80s. "There weren't that many of us," she remembers. "When we performed, we were constantly faced with guys who firmly believed that women were not as funny as men. That was a constant. We proved them wrong. And that will be evident at this very funny show," Piper noted.

Ronda Spinak, JWT's artistic director, is looking forward to presenting this special evening at JWT. "Our patrons know Monica as a treasured comedian and have seen a sliver of her stand-up in her stories, but now they will experience her as a stand-up," Spinak said. "We all could use a really good laugh. I know I could." Spinak hopes this is the first of a new regular Braid feature of comedy club nights.

The evening will consist of four separate comedy sets by:

Cathy Ladman, who appeared on The Tonight Show nine times, and has made multiple appearances on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, among others. Her film and tv credits include Charlie Wilson's War, The Aristocrats, White Oleander, Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead, Modern Family, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, Pretty Little Liars, Mad Men, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The multi-talented Ladman also wrote for The Wayne Brady Show, Caroline in the City, Roseanne, and King of Queens.

Monica Piper, an Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated comedy writer, actor and stand-up comic. She has written for sit-coms Roseanne and Mad About You, and was the head writer of the #1 children's animated series Rugrats. She starred in her own Showtime Network special, No, Monica, Just You and was nominated by the American Comedy Awards as one of the top five female comedians in the country. Monica is proud to be an Abby Freeman JWT artist-in-residence with Jewish Women's Theatre of Los Angeles. Her critically acclaimed one-woman play, Not That Jewish ran to sell-out crowds at The Braid before its hit 200 performance run off-Broadway, and recently enjoyed another 10 month run in Santa Monica. As a keynote speaker and breast cancer survivor, Monica brings her laugh-out-loud, yet insightful advice to audiences across the country.

SUE KOLINSKY, a television writer, three-time Emmy-nominated producer and stand-up comedian for over 30 years. Along with notable appearances on The Tonight Show and Bob Hope's Young Comedian's Special, Kolinsky has performed all over the world with the USO entertaining our troops. She is best known for her work on Top Chef, The Osbournes, and Sex and the City, and co-hosting a morning radio show with Steve Mason on NY's iconic WNEW. She is currently back in the saddle with Steve co-hosting the Culture Pop Podcast.

DEBBIE KASPER, an award-winning comedian and a two-time Emmy-nominated writer. She's written for Roseanne and The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and has traveled the country a few times over, making people laugh. Her collection of humorous essays, A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick, is due out in 2020. She is also a theatrical producer, director and stand-out stand-up comic who has been blowing audiences away for over 25 years. Her essays have been featured on numerous websites, and she has contributed humorous essays to two published anthologies.

When asked what audiences will like best at Three Jews and a Blonde Walk into the Braid, Piper's answer is simple. "Laughing," she says. "And after the show, there will be a Q and A, where we will let our guests in on the secrets of what it was like to be a woman in comedy, the difference in comedy through the decades and things we talked about in the 80's that we would never talk about now."

"Very rarely will you see this caliber of female comics all in the same place," Piper adds. "This is a bona fide headliner show. I wanted to bring my three hilarious friends together and share this brilliance with the JWT audience," Piper adds.

JWT, voted one of the "Best Live Theatres on the Westside" three years in a row by The Argonaut, stages and displays traditional and contemporary works and educational programming that provide a forum for the development, performance and showcasing of Jewish artistic talent. Now celebrating its 12th anniversary, JWT's salon theatre of original dramatic shows, each written to a specific theme, displays the diverse and eclectic community of writers, artists and creators who celebrate Jewish life, one story at a time. Learn more about JWT at: www.jewishwomenstheatre.org.

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