Caroline Aaron, Marilu Henner, Melanie Mayron & JoBeth Williams to Star in MADWOMEN OF THE WEST Off-Broadway

LDOS Media Lab, with Deco Rose Productions will present the New York premiere of Madwomen of the West, a new comedy by Sandra Tsing Loh. Performances will begin Saturday November 11th at Actors Temple Theatre (339 West 47th Street, between 8th & 9th Avenues). Opening Night is set for Monday December 11th. This limited Off-Broadway engagement will continue through Monday January 1st.
 
Beloved theater, TV and film veterans Caroline Aaron, Marilu Henner, Melanie Mayron, and JoBeth Williams will star under the direction of Thomas Caruso.
 
Welcome to Jules' stunning Brentwood mansion, where hangry (she's sugar-cleansing) Marilyn is throwing a surprise birthday brunch for Claudia, who hates birthdays. Champagne corks pop — and tempers flare — when their long-estranged celebrity friend Zoey crashes the party, fresh from her TED Talks. Expect hilarity, outrageous opinions, and unexpected wisdom about what it means to be a woman (no matter what pronouns you use) in the 21st century.
 

Caroline Aaron

has worked with Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Nora Ephron, Paul Mazursky, and Mike Nichols.  She made her Broadway debut in Robert Altman’s Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and later appeared in the film. More Broadway followed: the revival of The Iceman Cometh, Mike Nichols’s smash comedy Social Security, I Hate Hamlet, and Woody Allen’s Honeymoon Hotel.  She headlined the west coast premiere of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig, garnering both a Helen Hayes and Dramalogue Award.  Lincoln Center: A Kid Like Jake. McCarter Theatre: All The Days. Odyssey Theatre: Call Waiting, made into a film for Amazon Prime. Favorite film roles include Kevin Spacey’s Beyond the Sea, 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street, Just Like Heaven, Nancy Drew, Surveillance, Love Comes Lately, Edward Scissorhands, Anywhere But Here, Big Night, and Bounce, among others. She was recently seen in Theatre Camp and will be seen in the upcoming Between Two Temples, and The Fourth Dementia.  On television, while she is best known as Shirley Maisel on “The  Marvelous Mrs.Maisel,” she has also had recurring roles on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Ghosts,” “Episodes,” and “Transparent.”  A published author and playwright, Caroline is re-teaming with Sandra Tsing Loh for Madwomen of the West, having starred in her hit play Madwoman in the Volvo.  
 

Marilu Henner

With the energy of a teenager, the wisdom of a sage, and the memory of a  superhero, Marilu Henner has done it all: 76 films (including 28 Hallmark), 7 Broadway shows, 2 classic sitcoms (“Taxi” and “Evening Shade”), 5 Golden Globe nominations, and the New York Times Best Selling author of ten books on health, parenting, memory, and lifestyle improvement. Marilu hosted and executive produced two talk shows (“Marilu” and “Shape Up Your Life”) and the nationally syndicated radio show, “The Marilu Henner Show.” She competed on “Celebrity Apprentice” (2008), “Celebrity Apprentice All-Stars” (2013), and “Dancing with the Stars” (2016). Henner is one of twelve people documented with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory and was the subject of a five-part special on “60 Minutes” and on “60 Minutes Australia” and served as the consultant on the CBS series “Unforgettable.” Marilu has spoken before Congress eleven times (Alzheimer’s, dietary supplements, women’s cardiovascular disease, The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, deadbeat parents), and she contributed to the 2005 and 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Marilu is a keynote speaker for professional organizations, universities, government agencies, interest groups, and corporations on topics including memory, diet and fitness, women’s health issues, cardiovascular disease, cancer survival, child rearing, lifestyle, entertainment, and business organization strategies. Marilu can be seen in Disney’s “Haunted Mansion,” indy film Rock & Doris Try to Write a Movie, the Aurora Teagarden prequel, and she can be heard as the English dub in 16 Netflix International projects.  She tours the country in Music & Memories with Marilu Henner!.

Melanie Mayron

has appeared on stage in the first Bus & Truck-turned-National Tour of Godspell,  Off-Broadway in Susan Sandler’s Crossing Delancey and the tenth anniversary production of Godspell at La MaMa, and on Broadway in the revival of Herb Gardner’s The Goodbye People. She has starred in feature films including Car Wash, Harry & Tonto, Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends, Costa Gavras’ Missing, and Sticky Fingers which she co-wrote and co-produced with Catlin Adams. On the small screen, she starred with Vanessa Redgrave in Playing For Time and is most known for her  role in the groundbreaking drama “thirtysomething.” Melanie recurred on “Jane The Virgin” and  can be seen this fall in “Julia” on HBO Max. She was nominated three times for an Emmy Award and won for Best Supporting Actress for “thirtysomething.”  For the film Girlfriends, she was nominated  for a BAFTA for Best Newcomer and won The Bronze Leopard for Best Actress at the Locarno Film Festival. Melanie directed the features The Babysitter’s Club, She Gets What She Wants, and Snapshots. For television she directed numerous episodes including Cynthia Mort’s “Tell Me You Love Me” and “In Treatment” for HBO, “Glow” and “Grace and Frankie” for Netflix, as well as “Jane the Virgin,” “P Valley,” “Not Dead Yet,” “Julia” for HBO Max and “The Serpent Queen” for Starz. She was nominated for a Directors Guild Award for ABC’s “Toothless,” and won several Independent Film Festival awards for her feature Snapshots. Melanie is thrilled to be back on stage where it all began.
 
JoBeth Williams has starred in such films as Poltergeist, The Big Chill, Blake Edward’s Switch, Fever Pitch, The Big Year opposite Steve Martin, Kramer vs Kramer, and over thirty others. She began her career in the theater, spending two seasons at Trinity Repertory Theater before moving to New York, where she has starred in Annie Baker’s Body Awareness, Last Dance by Marsha Norman at Manhattan Theater Club, John Guare’s Gardenia at MTC, Moonchildren, Ladyhouse Blues, The Vagina Monologues, and A Couple of White Chicks. She starred opposite Stacey Keach in Idiot’s Delight at the Kennedy Center, Antony and Cleopatra at The Old Globe, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the McCarter, Threepenny Opera and Grand Horizons at Williamstown, Uncle Vanya, and Tartuffe, among others.  In Los Angeles, she has appeared at The Geffen Playhouse in Halley Feiffer’s A Funny Thing  Happened on the Way to and Jane Anderson’s The Quality of Life (Garland Award), Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities at the Taper, The Fall to Earth (Odyssey Theater), The Night is a Child  (Pasadena Playhouse), The Gin Game, and Love Among the Ruins at Laguna Playhouse. She has received three Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations for her work in television movies such as “Adam” and “Baby M,” and series such as “Frasier,” “Private Practice,” “Marry Me,” and “Hart of Dixie,” as well  as an Oscar nomination for directing and producing the short film On Hope. Upcoming, she stars in the new action thriller Not Without Hope.
 

Sandra Tsing Loh

is the author of The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones (2014, W.W. Norton), which was selected as one of the New York Times' 100 Most Notable Books. It is based on her Best American Essay 2012 on menopause, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her previous book, Mother on Fire, was inspired by her hit solo show about Los Angeles public education. During that time, she was named one of the 50 most influential comedians by Variety. Her other solo shows include Aliens in America and Bad Sex With Bud Kemp (both off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre), Sugar Plum Fairy (Geffen Playhouse, Seattle Rep, East West Players), and I Worry (Kennedy Center, Actor's Theatre of Louisville). Her short story, “My Father's Chinese Wives,” won a Pushcart Prize in 1996, and is also featured in the Norton Anthology of Modern Literature. Loh's other books include NY Times New and Noteworthy The Madwoman and the Roomba, A Year in Van Nuys, Aliens in America, Depth Takes a Holiday, and a novel, If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now, which was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the 100 best fiction books of 1998. She has been a regular commentator on NPR's “Morning Edition,” and on PRI's “This American Life” and “Marketplace.” Loh's education includes a BS in physics from the California Institute of Technology, an institution which granted her a Distinguished Alumna Award, its highest honor, and for whom she was the first alumna to give a now-famous commencement speech. Loh's combining of her communication and science skills continue with her NPR/syndicated daily minute “The Loh Down on Science,” which has been heard weekly by 4 million people since 2004. A Pushcart Prize winner, MacDowell Fellow and three-time National Magazine Award nominee, she is a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. Sandra's stand-up show, The B**** Is Back: An All-Too Intimate Conversation, ran at The Broad Stage in 2015. Her multi-character play based on The Madwoman in the Volvo premiered at South Coast Repertory Theatre (SCR) in 2016, and enjoyed subsequent runs at The Pasadena Playhouse and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Thomas Caruso

is an Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominee, who directed Bradley Whitford, Kate Burton and Alex Newell in A Christmas Carol at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Other credits include the Off-Broadway musical, Emojiland (New York Times Critic’s Pick, four Drama Desk Award nominations, and an Off-Broadway Alliance Award nomination: Best Musical); he directed and co-conceived the critically acclaimed musical Southern Comfort (The Public Theatre, New York Times Critic’s Pick, three Lucille Lortel Award and two OCC Award nominations including Best New Musical). In London, he directed the West End and World Tour of Dynamo: Seeing Is Believing for the Illusionist, Dynamo. And the Asia Tour of David Blaine: Real or Magic for the world-renowned Illusionist, David Blaine. Broadway Associate Director credits include: Matilda, Groundhog Day, A Christmas Carol, Ghost, Mamma Mia!, Bombay Dreams, Follies and Master Class. He directed the Broadway National Tours of Matilda, Ghost, Master Class, and Emojiland as well as many new works at Barrington Stage, Bay Street, NY Stage & Film, Rattlestick, EST, Play Co, Williamstown Theatre Festival, TheatreWorks Palo Alto, Penguin Rep, Studio Arena Theatre and Gloucester Stage. www.ThomasCaruso.com
 
The design team for Madwomen of the West will be announced shortly.
 
Performances will be Saturday at 2pm & 7pm, Sunday at 2pm, and Monday at 7pm. Actors Temple Theatre, located at 339 West 47th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues), is housed in the historical Actors Temple Synagogue in the heart of New York's Times Square Theatre District. This theatre has been the home of the long-running production of Black Angels Over Tuskegee, which  played for almost ten years year Off-Broadway, as well as Cowboy, Sistas, Soul Doctor, Zero Hour, Rain Pryor’s Fried Chicken and Latkes,  It's Just Sex, The Big Voice: God or Merman?, Goldstein, The J.A.P. Show: Jewish-American Princesses of Comedy  and  Paul Mecurio’s Permission To Speak.  
 
Tickets, which are now on sale, range from $39.50 to $119 and are available for purchase online at Telecharge.com, by phone at 212/239-6200, or visit the Actors Temple Theater box office (open one hour prior to showtime). Service fees will apply for online or phone orders. 

To post a comment, you must register and login.