Contact: Cathy Johnson or Susan Claassen 1400 N. First Ave, Tucson, AZ. 85719 www.invisibletheatre.com (520) 884-0672 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 10, 2011
SUSAN CLAASSEN returns to Tucson’s Invisible Theatre following a triumphant Los Angeles Premiere as legendary costume designer Edith Head in
by Paddy Calistro and Susan Claassen Through the generous support of Kristin Keller and Bernice Bauer
WHERE: The Invisible Theatre 1400 N. First Avenue (at Drachman) Tucson, AZ 85719
WHEN: March 3 - 5, 2011 4 PERFORMANCES ONLY! Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 7:30 pm Friday, March 4, 2011 at 8:00 pm Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 3:00 pm Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 8:00 pm
TICKETS: Ticket Price: $30 Call (520) 882-9721 for reservations and information Discounts available for groups of 10 or more RUSH TICKETS: One half-hour prior to curtain for any scheduled performance, tickets are available for half price – subject to availability CAST: Susan Claassen RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes with no intermission
Susan Claassen stars in her internationally acclaimed portrayal of legendary costume designer, Edith Head, winner of eight Oscars®. Hollywood’s golden age comes to life in an evening of wit, wisdom, and a whisper of gossip!
“Edith Head comes to life in a way that’s so perfectly accurate…” -The New York Times “Susan Claassen nails Edie in her one woman show!” - Los Angeles Times Arizona-based actress and Invisible Theatre’s Managing Artistic Director, SUSAN CLAASSEN, most recently completed a sold-out 5 week run at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. Many Hollywood greats attended the show’s Los Angeles premiere including actors Barbara Rush, Stefanie Powers, Susan Clark, Jane Withers and Tippi Hedren, star of “The Birds”. Miss Hedren even presented “Miss Head” with two reproductions of sketches from her personal collection.
The Costume Designer's Guild (Edith was a founding member) hosted an opening night gala with Emmy-Award winning designers Jacqueline Saint-Anne, Edith Head protege Jean-Pierre Dorleac, Helen Colving, Lawrence "The Fashion Guy" Zarian, "Trading Spaces" Paige Davis, "The Closers" Greg LaVoi, Mary Rose (President, Costume Designer's Guild) and Tim Malachosky, Mae West's personal assistant and friend of Edith Head.
Legendary producer/director Norman Lear who led the standing ovation on opening night said, “Your Edith IS Edith. Except she’d like to have been as entertaining!”
Joan Rivers, who saw the performance in London commented to Los Angeles Times, "I knew Edith Head quite well and Susan Claassen's vivid portrayal is an astonishing and deeply researched piece of theater. A must see for all movie buffs and fashionistas."
Broadway World’s Don Grigware included A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD, Ovation Recommended, in his Picks for the BEST in California Theatre for 2010.
“A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD”, based on EDITH HEAD’S HOLLYWOOD by Edith Head & Paddy Calistro, is a feast of delicious behind-the-scenes stories about Hollywood’s greatest stars that provide an intimate portrait of Hollywood’s legendary costume designer. In her six decades of costume design, Edith Head worked on over eleven hundred films; dressed the greatest stars of Hollywood; received 35 Academy Award® nominations, and won an unprecedented eight Oscars®. Edith Head’s story is as fascinating as the history of the film industry itself, filled with humor, frustration and, above all, glamour. This diva of design helped to define glamour in the most glamorous place in the world - Hollywood!
Edith Head was a Hollywood costume designer for more than 60 years. 44 of those years were spent at Paramount Studios, where she worked with the most famous actors of the time, from Mae West and Clara Bow to Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis. When Paramount failed to renew her contract in 1967, Alfred Hitchcock stepped in and Ms. Head was invited to join Universal Studios. At Universal she costumed Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting” and won the first-ever Oscar® for a film without a female lead. Her eight Academy Awards® celebrated her artistry in “The Heiress” (her first Oscar®), “Samson & Delilah”, “All About Eve”, “A Place in the Sun”, “Roman Holiday”, “Sabrina”, “The Facts of Life” and “The Sting”. Edith Head died in October 1981, still under contract to Universal Studios, having just completed the Steve Martin film, “Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid”.
(2) Susan Claassen was inspired to write and star in A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD while watching a TV biography of Ms. Head. Susan Claassen said: “Not only do I bear a striking resemblance to Edith, but we share the same love for clothes and fashion. Edith survived the boy’s club of Hollywood to enjoy a 60-year career, during which she worked on 1,131 films, earned 35 Oscar® nominations and won eight. She stitched Dorothy Lamour into her sarong; put Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in kilts in “The Road to Bali”; created Bette Davis’ glamorous Margo Channing; made teenage girls swoon over Elizabeth Taylor’s white ball gown in “A Place in the Sun”; dressed Ingrid Bergman in “Notorious”, Grace Kelly in “To Catch A Thief”, Kim Novak in “Vertigo”, Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard” and Sean Connery in “The Man Who Would Be King”. There are many myths about her but she was a discreet, tenacious personality. She knew whose hips needed clever disguising and made sure those legendary stars always looked the part. Our show gives the inside scoop on Edith and the Golden Age of Hollywood.”
Much of the dialogue in A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD comes directly from the famed designer. When she was asked to write the authorized posthumous autobiography, EDITH HEAD’S HOLLYWOOD, Paddy Calistro acquired more than 13 hours of recollections recorded by Edith Head – including her own snippy “Edithisms” as Ms. Head referred to her own sayings, such as: "I hate modesty, don't you?" and "Good clothes are not a matter of good luck." The show also features insights from Hollywood insiders who knew Ms. Head best: costume designer Bob Mackie, who once worked as Ms. Head's sketch artist; her dear friend Edie Wasserman, wife of the late Universal Studio head Lew Wasserman, and Art Linkletter, award-winning host of TV’s “House Party”, who brought Edith Head into the homes of America. Edith would stroll through the studio audience with Linkletter, offering brutally critical fashion, diet and grooming advice - all this half a century before the current mania for on-screen makeovers. "Go on a diet!" she would instruct an overweight woman, while instantly making her look ten pounds slimmer by pulling her shirt out of her trousers, whipping a belt around her middle and swapping her cheap gold jewelry for her own signature pearls. Young fans of Pixar’s “The Incredibles” will recognized the superhero outfitter Edna Mode as an affectionate tribute to the legendary Hollywood costume designer.
A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD premiered at the Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona. It was subsequently presented in Chicago; Key West; at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, MD; Hartford; San Francisco; Nantucket; San Diego; Scottsdale; Houston; Oklahoma; Costume Society of America National Symposium as well as internationally in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia; a 'sold out' engagement at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (out of the 2,000 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe only 200 were officially designated 'Sold Out' engagements), an acclaimed five-week run at the Leicester Square Theatre in London’s West End and most recently at The El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.
EDITH HEAD’S HOLLYWOOD by Edith Head and Paddy Calistro with foreword by Bette Davis will be available at all performances. (3) About the People
SUSAN CLAASSEN is celebrating her thirty-sixth anniversary with the Invisible Theatre (IT) of Tucson, Arizona. As Managing Artistic Director, she has produced more than 360 productions and directed more than eighty. Susan has been a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association (the professional actors’ union) since 1969, a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and The Costume Society of America. Some of her most memorable roles have been Bella in LOST IN YONKERS, Alice B. Toklas in GERTRUDE STEIN AND A COMPANION, Hannah in CROSSING DELANCEY, Shirley in SHIRLEY VALENTINE, Theda in IT HAD TO BE YOU, Trudy and all in THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and most recently Vi in NATIVES. In addition to her work with the Invisible Theatre, she has been a consultant and director for the Waterfront Playhouse and The Red Barn Theatre in Key West, Florida, and directed Steve Ross in I WON’T DANCE at New York’s famed Rainbow and Stars Cabaret and St. Paul's prestigious Ordway Theatre. Susan was the 1999 City of Hope “Spirit of Life” honoree, received Tucson’s “Humanitarian Torch Award” for her work on behalf of people living with AIDS and performs as a clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. She was selected as one of Tucson Lifestyle’s 10 Most Admired Women and was honored by The Jewish Federation in 2009 as one of Tucson’s 13 extraordinary women. Susan dedicates her work to the living memory of her beloved mother, Goldie.
PADDY CALISTRO is one of the leading authorities on Edith Head and is the co-author of Edith Head's posthumous autobiography, Edith Head’s Hollywood. The only authorized biography of the world’s most famous costume designer, the book was the first of several books written by Paddy Calistro. She was selected as Ms. Head’s official biographer based on her experience as a fashion journalist. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times in the fashion and beauty department, Paddy wrote the weekly “Looks” column featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine for four years as well as contributing several feature articles to the daily Times and its weekly magazine. She also was the West Coast reporter for Allure from its inception. Additionally, she contributed to Glamour, Mademoiselle, House Beautiful, Elle, Four Seasons Magazine and frequently to Fitness and Los Angeles. For more than a decade Paddy was the lead interior design writer for Los Angeles magazine, coordinating and writing sections on trends in home design. She was the editor of American Style, a bilingual fashion magazine sold in Mexico and South America. The co-founder of Angel City Press, an independent book publishing company based in Santa Monica, she currently serves as its publisher and editor-in-chief. Angel City Press released the 25th anniversary edition of Edith Head's Hollywood in 2009.
For additional information about A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD www.edithhead.biz NATIONAL PRESS REPRESENTATION
Susan L. Schulman 501 Broadway ~ Suite 1613 New York, NY 10036 Phone: 212-921-4344 Fax: 212-997-5272 Email: [email protected] (4) “There’s nothing like a row of Oscars® for putting the fear of God into an actress who thinks she knows everything about dress designing”
THE HEIRESS, 1949 SAMSON AND DELILAH, 1950 ALL ABOUT EVE, 1950 A PLACE IN THE SUN, 1951 ROMAN HOLIDAY, 1953 SABRINA, 1954 THE FACTS OF LIFE, 1960 THE STING, 1973 Edith Head received an unprecedented 35 Academy Award nominations and won a record-setting eight Oscars® for Costume Design
“You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.”
(5) The Invisible Theatre and Loft Cinema, in conjunction with A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD, present a fundraiser thatʼs really for “The Birds”!
Join the incomparable Tippi Hedren for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller “The Birds” with costumes by Edith Head Sunday, March 6, 2011 at Noon (a Q & A will follow the screening)
3233 E. Speedway Blvd. Tucson, Arizona
Doors open at 11:30 AM for a fundraising autograph signing session with Tippi!
General Admission $10 VIP Tickets including screening and reception with Tippi $50 (20% discount for IT Season Ticket Holders and Loft Members) Seating is very limited! Tickets can be purchased at The Loft Cinema (520) 795-0844 or online at www. loftcinema.com. It would really be “fowl” if you missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Tippi Hedren, a great actress and great humanitarian and hear the back story on the thrills and chills of working with the master of suspense!
All funds raised will benefit The Roar Foundation*, Invisible Theatre and The Loft Cinema
*The Roar Foundation supports The Shambala Preserve and shares its mission: to educate the public about exotic animals and to provide sanctuary for exotic animals who have suffered from gross mistreatment. www.shambala.org (6)