'Women Laughing Alone...' Opens at Douglas

THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF “WOMEN LAUGHING ALONE WITH SALAD” OPENS SUNDAY, MARCH 13 AT CTG’S KIRK DOUGLAS THEATRE

Performances Continue Through April 3, 2016

The West Coast premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s madcap new play “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” opens Sunday, March 13, 2016, at 6:30 p.m. at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre. Directed by Neel Keller, with musical staging by Ken Roht, performances for “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” continue through April 3. (Previews began on March 6.)

The cast includes Lisa Banes (“Gone Girl,” the film; “Present Laughter,” Broadway) Nora Kirkpatrick (founding member of the Grammy-winning band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros; “Pink Grapefruit,” the film), David Clayton Rogers (“Revenge of the Bridesmaids,” ABC Family; guest roles on “Mixology” and “Nashville”) and Dinora Z. Walcott (“Scandal”; guest roles on “Rizzoli & Isles,” “The Mentalist”).

The story in “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” swirls around a man named Guy and three very different women in his life whose feral drives, distorted priorities and passionate love affairs with salad are driving Guy over the edge. Tossed with Callaghan's signature bite, humor and rambunctious theatricality, “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” explores our image-obsessed culture in a world saturated by social media and seductive marketing.

“No matter the topic at hand,” said Alexis Soloski of The New York Times, “Ms. Callaghan’s writing, whether in plays like ‘Roadkill Confidential’ and ‘That Pretty Pretty’ or the cable series ‘Shameless’ and ‘The United States of Tara,’ is florid and highly inflammable … Themes and fixations crash together like vehicles in a multi-car pileup.”

Callaghan’s plays include “Scab,” “Crawl Fade to White,” “Crumble,” “(Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake),” “We Are Not These Hands,” “Dead City,” “Lascivious Something,” Kate Crackernuts,” “The Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play,” “Fever/Dream,” “Everything You Touch” and “Roadkill Confidential." She is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a member of the playwrights’ organization 13P and a resident of New Dramatists. She is a writer/producer on Showtime’s “Shameless.”

“Women Laughing Alone With Salad” was developed in the 2012-2013 CTG Writers’ Workshop.

Scenic design for “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” is by Keith Mitchell, costume design is by Ann Closs-Farley, lighting is by Elizabeth Harper, sound design by John Zalewski, projection design is by Keith Skretch and fight direction is by Ahmed Best. Casting is by Meg Fister and the production stage manager is Brooke Baldwin.

Tickets are available online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, by calling CTG Audience Services at (213) 628-2772, in person at the Center Theatre Group box office (at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles) or at the Kirk Douglas Theatre box office two hours prior to performances.

The Kirk Douglas Theatre is located at 9820 Washington Blvd. in Culver City, CA 90232. Ample free parking and restaurants are adjacent.

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March 9, 2016