Margaux Laskey's previously acclaimed, award-winning and hilarious SIZE ATE will return Off-Off-Broadway January 14 through January 16 for five (5) performances only at the wild project (195 East 3rd Street - between Avenues A and B).
The show, which has been successfully touring the country for three years, is a refreshing and challenging response to every January magazine cover that shouts "New Year, New You!"
SIZE ATE chronicles Ms. Laskey's harrowingly humorous struggle with body and food issues as she journeys towards self-acceptance at ANY size.
Not just for women or "eating disordered" individuals, SIZE ATE explores the universal themes of obsession, addiction, redemption and recovery through humor, drama, song and imagery.
Like the Dove billboard girls and plus-size model Crystal Renn's recently-released autobiography Hungry, Margaux Laskey's SIZE ATE offers a counter voice to the thin obsessed people like designer Ralph Lauren who fired Fillippa Hamilton, a 5'10" 120 pound model because she's "fat" and the supermodel Kate Moss who recently quipped, "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels."
SIZE ATE premiered in NYC in November 2005, and won New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.
Since then, Ms. Laskey, a recovering anorexic and compulsive dieter, has been touring the show performing at colleges and conferences - including Columbia University, Barnard College, Pace, and SUNY New Paltz - as an alternative and entertaining outreach tool.
Throughout SIZE ATE, Laskey uses nine life-size body forms labeled with the dress sizes that she has been at one time or another in her life - 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16.
They serve as props, as punching bags, as dance partners, and represent the extraordinary push-pull these arbitrary numbers can have on a every woman's sense of self-worth.
Images of food and the media are projected throughout - a huge, swirling basket of bread, a life-size image of an emaciated Kate Moss, nutrition labels - underlining the enormous impact these seemingly harmless everyday items and images can have on us as we move through our lives.
The meaning of the show's name SIZE ATE is twofold: first, the obvious play on words.
Then the number eight.
8.
Once a dress size Laskey desperately strived for, she realized that when she turned number 8 it on it's side it became the infinity symbol.
"If you refuse to look at things the way the world tells you to see them, you realize that anything is possible. The possibilities for your happiness, for your life, are limitless. Infinite."
The 2005 version of SIZE ATE focused on what it's like to currently have an eating disorder, it's causes and effects. This version will include new material that delves more deeply into the nitty-gritty of how Laskey got better. It will also reflect some of the changes in Laskey's relationship with her body and food she's experienced since the premiere in 2005.
"The human body is constantly changing, growing and receding, and I want the show to reflect that. I've changed, my body has changed." Laskey's weight has fluctuated up and down a bit (but she doesn't weigh herself and she won't tell you her size) since she began writing and performing the show. "It's important for the the young women and men I perform for to understand that to some extent it's normal and healthy for our bodies to fluctuate. We are not static creatures."
Each January performance will include a 30-minute post-show discussion. Some shows will have special guests including therapists and fellow survivors.
ABOUT
MARGAUX LASKEY
Margaux Laskey is a writer and performer based in NYC. Diagnosed anorexic at 13, then 'cured', Laskey bounced back and forth between compulsive dieting and eating for the next 10 years. She had an anorexic relapse at the age of 23, prompting her to take a break from auditioning and show business. It was during this hiatus that she began studying acting for fun with ElizaBeth Browning and SIZE ATE was born. The show started from a series of poems written in her journal that she read out loud in class one night. Over the course of 2 years, and with the help oF Browning and her director Steven McElroy, Laskey developed the show SIZE ATE.
ABOUT
SIZE ATE
In 2006, SIZE ATE won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Peformance. The show was also nominated for Outstanding Performance Art Piece. Laskey has performed SIZE ATE at Barnard College/Columbia University, Caldwell College, Dominican College, Drew University, Immaculata College, Pace University, SUNY New Paltz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Ulster County Eating Disorders Coalition Annual Conference. Ms. Laskey will perform SIZE ATE at Arizona State University in February 2010 as part of Body Pride Week.
