SHORTENED ATTENTION SPAN presents BY-INVITAION-ONLY INDUSTRY READING of THE PROVOCATIVE & HEART-BREAKING COMEDY "THE FATMAN COMETH" The Life and Death of Chris Farley
STARRING ALAN PAGANO & CARLO RIVIECCIO
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Charles Messina
FEBRUARY 28
7:00pm
The Players THEATRE
"THE FATMAN COMETH" The Life and Death of Chris Farley has been in development for two years.
Now ready for Industry involvement, it will be presented by SHORTENED ATTENTION SPAN in a by-invitation-only Reading at The Players Theatre (115 MacDougal Street - between 3rd Street & Minetta Lane) on Monday, February 28th at 7:00pm).
With a story by Alan Pagano and Carlo Rivieccio the provocative and heart-breaking comedy has been written and directed by Charles Messina.
Mr. Pagano will star as Chris Farley. Mr. Rivieccio will co-star as Kip Kaplan, a personal manager and an amalgamation of all of the authority figures in Chris Farley's unsettled life and meteoric career; it's quite a group.
The comedy is a riveting portrayal of an iconic star that left a gigantic legacy, which has only grown with time.
How kind history is to Chris Farley's indelible mark on our pop culture remains to be seen.
This play's portrayal of his comic genius, however, needs to be seen.
Chris Farley's characters were irresistibly woven into the American dialogue during his five years on Saturday Night Live. His films weighed in with extremely successful opening weekends.
What fueled such stratospheric success is what drives Mr. Messina's play.
The test audiences have had tears in their eyes from laughter until the final moments of the second act when their tears are generated by other emotions.
RSVP: 617-327-3463 or TheJacksinaCo@mindspring.com
ABOUT THE PLAY
"THE FATMAN COMETH" The Life and Death of Chris Farley takes place in the star's dressing room in Studio 8-H at the Rockefeller Center NBC Studios during the last 18 months of the star's life. The evening's events have as unbalancing a rollercoaster effect on the play's two characters as they do on the audience. And as most collision courses promise, the journey is exhilarating; the results are stunning. As an artist, Chris Farley was very courageous. So to is this play.
ABOUT CHRIS FARLEY
Christopher Crosby "Chris" Farley was born on Saturday, February 15th, 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin. He died 33 years later on Thursday, December 18th, 1997 in Chicago, Illinois. During his five years on Saturday Night Live (1990 - 1995) he created MATT FOLEY (the over-the-top motivational speaker), TODD O'CONNOR (an obsessed Bears fan), an outside-the-box CHIPPENDALES DANCER, THE LUNCH LADY, BEVERLY GELFAND (the ZAGAT reviewer), THE HURLIHY BOY (an Infomercial star) a JAPANESE GAME SHOW CONTESTANT, PRESIDENT Bill Clinton and THE GAP GIRLS among many, many brilliant others. His films included Wayne's World, Wayne's World 2, Airheads, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy, Coneheads, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, Almost Heroes and Dirty Work. He received three MTV MOVIE AWARDS, two for Best Comedic Performance.
ABOUT
Charles Messina
Charles Messina is best known for his deconstructive take on biographical subjects, including the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway plays Cirque Jacqueline, about the life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God, about Queen 's frontman Freddie Mercury. Messina also directed the musical Be My Love, written by Richard Vetere about the life of singer Mario Lanza w hich was produced by Sonny Grosso and Phil Ramone at The Tillis Center in 2007 and at the Univ of Miami in 2010. Messina has directed the off-Broadway shows Rockaway Boulevard by Richard Vetere, The Accidental Pervert by Andrew Goffman, and Art Metrano's Accidental Comedy. As well as a staged reading of his own scriptYounger, starring Joe Piscopo. In May 2010, Messina directed and co-wrote (along with Vincent Gogliormella) the script "Twas The Night Before a Brooklyn Christmas", starring Mario Cantone, Michael Rispoli and Robert Cuccioli at 45 Bleecker in Greenwich Village. Messina's play "A Room of My Own", starring Ralph Macchio and Mario Cantone, about an Italian-American family living in Greenwich Village in the late 1970s, is being developed as a feature film by Executive Producer TEd Kurdyla.
