Lisa Lampanelli's STUFFED to Launch New Off-Broadway Run This Fall

Comedian Lisa Lampanelli and producer Rachel Karpf have announced that Lisa's new play, STUFFED, will open Off-Broadway this fall in a new production at the Westside Theatre (407 West 43rd Street), following a limited NYC run last fall at WP Theater.

Directed by Jackson Gay (These Paper Bullets!) and starring Lampanelli, with additional cast and creative team to be announced, STUFFED will begin previews Friday, October 6. Tickets will go on sale shortly at a date to be announced. Additional material was contributed to the play by Ashley Austin Morris.

"I can't wait to get this play back in front of audiences," said Lampanelli. "I learned so much from our first New York production and I couldn't wait to jump back into the script and continue working on it. Now, of course, there's no shortage of jokes in STUFFED, but it's also a real play featuring women talking about a subject that's close to my heart - our relationships with food, weight, and body image. I'm so glad to have the opportunity to do a new, improved version of the show in order to keep the dialogue going about one of the most common issues people struggle with, while still keeping the laughs flowing."

The four characters in STUFFED are a lifelong dieter, a bulimic, a confident overweight gal, and a permanent size-zero. The play features Lampanelli's famously irreverent voice, signature wit, and an extra-large scoop of razor-sharp insight into the crazy-making world of our relationships with food. With Lisa onstage, alongside a talented cast, STUFFED doesn't shy away from tough questions like: Is eating an ice cream sandwich in the shower as emotionally fulfilling as it sounds? When it comes to jeans, what's better -- muffin top or camel toe? And, if Oprah, the most powerful person in the world, can't conquer her food issues, what can the rest of us do but laugh as we try?

The New York premiere of STUFFED was produced in 2016 by WP Theater, formerly known as Women's Project Theater (Lisa McNulty, Producing Artistic Director, Maureen Moynihan, Managing Director) and directed by Jackson Gay.

Lisa Lampanelli shot her fifth stand-up special, "Back to the Drawing Board," which premiered on EPIX and was nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for "Best Comedy Album." In the special, Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean showed off her radically different look after having lost more than 100 pounds. That weight loss, which she has maintained for over five years, inspired her to write her play STUFFED since, having been every size from 2 to 26, she has firsthand knowledge of the food and body-image struggle. Lisa became a household name when she joined 17 other celebrities on the fifth season of NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," where she advanced to the final four in the competition, raising $130,000 for her chosen charity, the Gay Men's Health Crisis. She also starred as a regular on "BounTy Hunters," CMT's first-ever animated series, and guest-starred on a hilarious episode of CBS's "2 Broke Girls," helmed by "Sex and The City" creator, Michael Patrick King. When Lampanelli debuted the first version of "Stuffed" in the fall of 2016 at the WP Theatre, the New York Times said "'Stuffed' offers laughs, and even a bit of insight . . . Lampanelli's strongest, funniest and most affecting work" and the Hollywood Reporter echoed their sentiments, calling the play "very funny and affecting." Lampanelli is thrilled to unveil the brand-new version of "Stuffed" in October 2017 at the Westside Theatre, a venue steeped in tradition of great works for and by women, including Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" and Nora and Delia Ephron's "Love, Loss, and What I Wore."

Jackson Gay Upcoming projects include Transfers by Lucy Thurber (New York Stage & Film); Chekhov's Three Sisters (Studio Theatre in association with New Neighborhood). Recent projects include Much Ado About Nothing adapted with Kenneth Lin (Cal Shakes); Workshop of Suzanne Vega's Lover, Beloved, An Evening with Carson McCullers with music by Vega and Duncan Sheik (Rattlestick and Rattlestick West LA); George Brant's Grounded (Alley Theatre); Jen Silverman's The Moors (Yale Rep); These Paper Bullets! Adapted from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing by Rolin Jones with music by Billie Joe Armstrong (Atlantic Theater Company, Geffen Playhouse, Yale Rep - Critics Pick Time Out NY, Best Production and Adaptation LA Sage Awards, Best of 2015 Time Out Los Angeles, Connecticut Critics Circle Award Best Production and Best Director); I Saw My Neighbor On The Train And I Didn't Even Smile by Suzanne Heathcote (co-production New Neighborhood / Berkshire Theatre Festival); Elevada by Sheila Callaghan (Yale Rep); The Insurgents by Lucy Thurber (LAByrinth Theater Company); 3C by David Adjmi (Rattlestick/piece by piece/Rising Phoenix); Lucy Thurber's Where We're Born - The Hilltown Plays (Rattlestick); Rolin Jones's The Jammer (Atlantic Theater Company) and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Atlantic and Yale Rep, Connecticut Critics Circle Award Outstanding Production of a Play); A Little Journey (Mint Theater Company, Drama Desk nomination Outstanding Revival of a Play); Other Desert Cities; August: Osage County; Red and Kenneth Lin's Intelligence-Slave (Alley Theatre). Jackson is a founding member of New Neighborhood. She is the Director of Artistic Programming for Fuller Road Artist Residency and teaches directing at Yale College. BFA University of the Arts. MFA Yale School of Drama. Jackson is from Sugar Land, Texas.

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