Arnold Schulman's SLEEPING UGLY Set for Santa Monica Playhouse, April-June

The world premiere of two-time Oscar nominated show business legend Arnold Schulman's humorous and romantic SLEEPING UGLY – an adult fairytale about love and lust, longing and belonging, sex and sensibility, parents and pediatrics, and the passion and pain of living with a werewolf opens Sunday, April 15 and plays weekends at Santa Monica Playhouse through June 17, 2012.

This adult cartoon is made larger-than-life by Director Chris DeCarlo who combines The Playhouse's signature Commedia-Circus style with physical theatrix, multi-media design and live underscore.

Playwright Schulman is a two-time Oscar nominated screenwriter for Best Original Screenplay for Love with the Proper Stranger in 1963 and Best Adapted Screenplay for Goodbye, Columbus in 1969. He was thrice nominated for a Writer's Guild award for Best Screenplay for the movies Wild Is the Wind, A Hole in the Head, and Love with the Proper Stranger, and won the Award in 1969 for Goodbye Columbus. His work on And the Band Played On garnered him a1994 Humanitas Prize. Other motion picture credits include Tucker: the Man and His Dream, A Chorus Line, Funny Lady, Cimarron, The Night They Raided Minsky's. Broadway theatre credits: A Hole in the Head starring Paul Douglas which he later adapted for film and Jennie starring Mary Martin.

Veteran director DeCarlo has been acting, writing and directing in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, bringing to the stage over 250 World Premieres and American Premieres. Highlights include the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, Hard Laughs starring Sammy Shore and Ron Palillo, Michel Garneau's Quatre á Quatre, Stephen King and Robert B. Parker's RAGE, four of Jerry Mayer's comedies, Annie Reiner's Mirage a Trois, Brenda Krantz's Lovely! starring Louise Sorrell, the Ovation-nominated Picon Pie, the LA TIMES Critics' Pick productions the Sroka/Fleming comedy Dying for Laughs starring Stuart Pankin, and Charlie Lustman's pop-operetta Made Me Nuclear.

Sleeping Ugly features Alison Blanchard (Everybody Hates Chris), Serena Dolinsky (Dolls!), Juliet Ladines (Dirty Sexy Murder), Scot Shamblin (Talk Radio), Constance Strickland (Trojan Women), James Terry (General Hospital, Protocol), with Jaimi Paige (Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side, Medium) as the gorgeous but hopelessly klutzy Judy and Chuck Raucci (ER, Veronica Mars) as the adorably compulsive dentist cum werewolf Stanley. . Rounding out the production team are Commedia Movement Director Dolinsky, Lighting and Set Designer James Cooper, Sound Designer Linn Yamaha Hirschman, with Graphic Design and Projections by Timothy Chadwick and Costumes by award-winning designer Ashley Hayes.

Plays Saturdays at 8 pm & Sundays at 7 pm, April 15 - June 17, 2012. All previews (April 15 – May 4) $15; general admission $25; students, teachers, seniors and members of the military $21.50. Group rates available. Call 310-394-9779 ext 1 or online.

The Other Space at Santa Monica Playhouse is at 1211 4th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401. Convenient parking located across the street in city lot #1. By public transportation: take the Santa Monica Blue Bus or the LA Metro Rapid #720, exit 4th and Wilshire.

http://www.santamonicaplayhouse.com/