Rita Rudner and Robert Klein to Headline Mayo Center This Fall

Two comedy legends in one night! Rita Rudner and RoBert Klein come to Mayo Performing Arts Center on Saturday, November 5, 2016 at 8 pm. Tickets are $49 - $79.

For more than forty years, RoBert Klein has entertained audiences, and he continues to have an acclaimed career in comedy, on Broadway, on television, and in film.

He was nominated twice for Grammy Awards for "Best Comedy Album of the Year" for his albums "Child of the Fifties" and "Mind Over Matter."

He received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor, and won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his performance in the hit Neil Simon musical, "They're Playing Our Song." In 1993, Klein won an Obie and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in Wendy Wasserstein's, "The Sisters Rosensweig."

In 1975, Klein was the first comedian to appear in a live concert on Home Box Office. He has gone on to do nine one-man shows for HBO and received his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Music and Lyrics in 2001 for RoBert Klein: "Child in His 50's." Klein released "RoBert Klein: The HBO Specials 1975- 2005," a collector's DVD box set to critical acclaim.

Among dozens of starring and guest-starring roles on television, he co-starred in the hit NBC series, "Sisters," has a recurring guest-starring role on "Law and Order" and has recently guest starred on "The Good Wife" and "Royal Pains." He regularly appears on talk shows, making more than 100 appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Late Show with David Letterman" alone.

Klein has also appeared in many notable films including, "Hooper," "The Owl and the Pussycat," "Primary Colors," "People I Know," "Two Weeks Notice," and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," and "The Back-Up Plan" with Jennifer Lopez.

Rita Rudner moved to New York at the age of fifteen to dance on Broadway. She appeared in several Broadway musicals, including the legendary original productions of "Follies" and "Mack and Mabel."

It was while she was appearing in "Annie" on Broadway that Rita began exploring the Comedy Clubs of Manhattan. She applied the same learning techniques she had acquired as a dancer to comedy, spending hours studying recordings by Jack Benny and Woody Allen and analyzing comedy construction.

She developed her trademark epigrammatic style and took a full-time leap form chorus lines to punch lines in the early eighties. A frequent guest on both Late Night With Letterman and The Tonight Show during this time, Rita also appeared often on HBO.

Her first solo HBO special, "Rita Rudner's One Night Stand," was nominated for several awards, as was her English BBC television show which later appeared on A&E. Rita's two one-hour specials for HBO, "Born to Be Mild" and "Married Without Children," were ratings standouts and many viewers liked her dresses. She performed all over the country, filling Carnegie Hall in New York three times and the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles twice. She also performed sell-out tours of Australia and England.

Recently, Rita recorded her first stand up TV special for over a decade. "Rita Rudner: Live From Las Vegas" for PBS in conjunction with a DVD release thru' Image Entertainment, as well as a radio series for the BBC. She and her husband Martin Bergman have also written a couple of successful plays and will be collaborating again on a new work which premiered in January 2016 at the Laguna Playhouse in California. Her first love, however, remains standup comedy and she still performs all over the country whenever her Las Vegas schedule allows it.

Mayo Performing Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, presents a wide range of programs that entertain, enrich, and educate the diverse population of the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey. The 2016-2017 season is made possible, in part, by a grant the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support received from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation and numerous corporations, foundations and individuals. The Mayo Performing Arts Center has been designated a Major Presenting Organization by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Mayo Performing Arts Center has been named 2016 Outstanding Historic Theatre by the League of Historic American Theatres.

Mayo Performing Arts Center is located at 100 South St., Morristown, NJ 07960. Contact the box office at (973) 539-8008 or online at www.mayoarts.org.

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