West Coast Premiere THE BEAUTY, THE BANSHEE & ME: Award-Winning Autobiographical Play

What would you do if your original birth certificate was sealed by the courts, unobtainable, and your heart's desire was to know where you came from? Playwright/Performer Cathy Lind Hayes, adopted at three months old by celebrated entertainer Peter Lind Hayes and his beautiful actress/singer wife Mary Healy, embarks on a decades-long journey to learn the truth about where she came from and why she was given up. Cathy debuted The Beauty, The Banshee & Me at the 2014 United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City, winning the award for Best Autobiographical Show. In this deeply passionate, humorous, and poignant solo play, her search takes many turns as she tries to make sense of how she is the daughter of two very different women. Michael Allen Angel directs the West Coast Premiere of The Beauty, The Banshee & Me at the Whitefire Theatre beginning September 15.

Cathy's parents, Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy were household names in the 1950's and 60's, popular in film, television, theatre, and radio, headlining the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas 14 times.

As wonderful and as colorful as her childhood was, Cathy felt compelled to learn the truth about where she came from. As an adult, she attempted to obtain the information from the New York Foundling Hospital, only to learn that all she was entitled to was "non-identifying information" and that state law forbid her access to her original birth certificate. It still does. Thus began a decades long search, investigating on her own, determined to meet the woman who gave her up.

The Beauty, The Banshee & Me is the humorous and sometimes heartbreaking story of that search.

Cathy Lind Hayes is proud of her third generation theatrical heritage (Grandmother Grace Hayes was a successful Vaudevillian actress/singer). Cathy made her television debut with her parents, at the age of 4, on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person. On stage, she originated the role of "Babet" in He Hunts at the Geffen Playhouse for which she received an Ovation Award Nomination. Los Angeles: Vera in Change Beds and Dance at the Secret Rose Theatre (World Premiere); Francine in Who Lives? at the 24th Street Theatre (World Premiere); The Tangled Snarl at the Santa Monica Playhouse, and The Shadow of a Gunman, Theatre Exchange, directed by Richard Masur, produced by Brian Dennehy. She also had the privilege of playing opposite her mother, Mary Healy, in The Glass Menagerie, in Las Vegas.

Television credits include guest starring roles on Scandal, Mad Men, NCIS Los Angeles, Grey's Anatomy, Las Vegas, Friends, Boston Public, Strong Medicine,Undeclared, Judging Amy, ER, Seinfeld, Days of Our Lives, and series regular on Chicken Soup with Lynn Redgrave and Jackie Mason. Film credits include Broken Hart, Self-Medicated, Slightly Thicker Than Water, Dogs of Woods Hole, Drop Dead Fred, and the infamous Mommie Dearest.

Michael Allen Angel, a graduate of UCLA's Department of Theatre, Film, and Television, has a diverse list of entertainment credits: Assistant Stage Manager for the Los Angeles Theatre Center; Production Manager for the L.A. Troupe: Theatre-in-Education; Properties Designer and Prop Master for the Pasadena Playhouse, as well as REPRISE! LA, and the long-running interactive-theatre hit Tamara. Favorite directing credits include Dracula, Go Go Girls in Trouble, Blake Warner's After Hours, and the gender-bending illusionist duo IMAJICK in their Adventures of Priscilla and Trixie, which played Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City. His award-winning short film Broken Hart was shortlisted for the prestigious Iris Prize and was seen at festivals in Wales, Mumbai, Brussels, Indianapolis, Providence, and Santa Barbara. Most recently, Michael was a contributing writer on Seraph Film's popular YouTube horror anthology series Horror Haiku with the episode entitled "Til Death Do Us Part."

Mount Tom Productions in association with Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners produces.

The Beauty, The Banshee & Me opens for press on September 15 and continues through October 23. Performances take place Thursdays at 8 p.m., and Sundaysat 3 p.m. All tickets are $25, The Whitefire Theatre is located at 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91423. For reservations and information, call (323) 960-1055 or go to www.plays411.com/banshee.

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