Off-Broadway NewsStuffed, Written by and StarringLisa Lampanelli, Will Close Off-BroadwayThe production will wrap up its return engagement at the Westside Theatre later this month.
By
Olivia Clement
November 06, 2017
Lisa Lampanelli
Marc J. Franklin
The return engagement of Lisa Lampanelli’s comedy Stuffed will play its final performance at the Westside Theatre November 19. The production, which opened Off-Broadway October 31, was scheduled to play an open-ended run.
Stuffed returned Off-Broadway beginning October 5 following a New York premiere from WP theater last fall. The play explores the complexity of women’s relationships to food and body image, with characters that include a bulimic, a compulsive eater, a confident overweight woman, and a chronically thin one.
The production stars Lampanelli, Lauren Ann Brickman, Eden Malyn, and Marsha Stephanie Blake, with understudies Dionne Audain and Angela Janas. Jackson Gay (These PaperBullets!) directs.
Brickman, previously an understudy to Nikki Blonsky, stepped into the role two days prior to the first preview, after Blonsky fell ill during rehearsals. Brickman later officially stepped into the role and Blonsky departed the production after one performance.
“Every night onstage when I looked into the eyes of the radiant Marsha Stephanie Blake in an emotional moment, or laughed along with the hysterical and multidimensional Eden Malyn, I felt a little taste of what it is like to be a real actor. And the fact that I could give our former understudy Lauren Ann Brickman her first starring Off-Broadway role made me feel like a proud mom,” says Lampanelli.
“Our director Jackson Gay helped me bring the story to life onstage in ways I never could have imagined. Plus, every story of weight and body-image struggle I heard from audience members touched me so, so much! I wanted to move the needle a little closer to self-acceptance and away from self-hate, and if I did that, it made every single minute I worked on the show worth it.”
At the time of closing, Stuffed will have played 31 previews and 23 regular performances. The return engagement was produced by Rachel Karpf.
The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success.
