Colbert, Sanders, et al. Set for BETRAYAL Reading, 1/9

Stephen Colbert, the multiple-Emmy Award-winning host of Comedy Central's satirical The Colbert Report, will trade his traditional comic persona for a dramatic role when he performs in a special reading of Harold Pinter's Betrayal to benefit Luna Stage.

Colbert, whose TV series has been acclaimed as "the best show of the year" by both The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, will appear in the three-person reading along with his wife, Evelyn McGee-Colbert, and actor Jay O. Sanders.   The reading will be directed by James Glossman.

Pinter's Betrayal, which premiered in 1978, is widely regarded as one of the British Nobel laureate's greatest dramatic works.  Inspired by Pinter's own clandestine extramarital affair, it follows the seven-year affair involving a married couple, Emma and Robert, and Robert's close friend Jerry, who is also married.  It's one of mankind's oldest stories, but told through an innovative reverse-chronology structure, moving backwards in time from 1977 to Jerry's first drunken declaration of his feelings for Emma in 1968 - always letting the audience draw its own conclusions about ethics and morality.

A veteran of Chicago's Second City improvisational troupe, Stephen Colbert has been a TV comedian and writer since the mid-1990s, when he was a writer and performer for the cable sketch comedy Exit 57 (1995-96). He joined The Daily Show in 1997 and also worked as a writer and actor for the series Strangers with Candy (1999-2000, with Amy Sedaris). As The Daily Show became more political, Colbert developed the character he later took to The Colbert Report, that of a conservative political pundit along the lines of Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh.  Since 2005 The Colbert Report has dryly satirized American politics, with Colbert in character as an ill-informed blowhard who values "truthiness" above all things. Colbert made headlines in 2007 when he announced his intention to run for the presidency of the United States; the gag lasted almost up to election time.   More recently, his October 30, 2010 "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear," with fellow comedian Jon Stewart, made headlines worldwide and drew nearly a quarter of a million attendees to the Mall in Washington, D.C.

Evelyn McGee-Colbert has performed in an episode of Strangers with Candy on Comedy Central, and also appeared in the 2005 movie version.  She and husband Stephen Colbert are the parents of three children.

Jay O. Sanders has appeared at The Public Theater in Richard Nelson's That Hopey Changey Thing, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Stuff Happens, and on Broadway as Doolittle in Pygmalion. He has narrated numerous PBS documentaries, including Wide Angle and Nova. His film credits include Revolutionary Road, Half Nelson, JFK, Tumbleweeds and The Day After Tomorrow and he has guest-starred on many TV series, including Roseanne, Law & Order and Body of Proof.

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