Tony Shaloub and More Join Fundraiser Performance for Los Altos Stage Company

On Sunday, November 8, three very special new friends of Los Altos Stage Company will present a very special performance as a fundraising event for the Company.

Theatre/Film/Television stars Brooke Adams, Polly Draper, and Tony Shalhoub will perform a Live-Streamed reading of Harold Pinter's Old Times.

LASC board member Vivian Lufkin arranged for her friend, actress Polly Draper, to Zoom-bomb the July board meeting. Not only did Polly "virtually drop in," she brought along her good friends and fellow actors Tony Shalhoub and his wife, Brooke Adams. As the subsequent conversation developed, the three actors volunteered to come up with something that would serve as a fundraising event for LASC.

The decision to perform Old Times came about because, as Polly put it, "We all love the play, and it's a perfect fit for the three of us." Polly and Tony met and performed a scene from this play while attending the Yale School of Drama. Polly also met and performed with Brooke in a local Connecticut production during that time, and the three have been inseparable friends for 40 years.

LASC is both humbled and thrilled to have these amazing actors lend their talents to an event to help the Company during these challenging times. The live-streamed reading will take place from 5:00 pm-to 6:30 pm at a ticket price of $50.00 per household. A limited number of special VIP tickets are available for $750.00 per household and include access to a virtual post-show reception with the artists, along with a wine and cheese basket delivered to your home.

Event details and ticket information can be found at losaltosstage.org.

Old Times is categorized as one of the Harold Pinter "memory plays" that characterized his evolution and development in the 1970's through a series of productions that took a step back from the more cerebral experimentation of the playwright's earlier work which established his reputation. Old Times premiered in June 1971 at the Aldwych Theatre as a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Old Times is a three-character domestic drama overlaid with typically Pinteresque ambiguity and mystery. It was the first full length play to come from Pinter since his Tony-award winning 1965 megahit The Homecoming. The reviewers were doubtlessly readying to slice it to pieces after such an extended gap, but instead were almost universally won over.

ABOUT THE ACTORS:

Brooke Adams started her career on the stage, with credits including The Heidi Chronicles, Key Exchange, Split, The Old Neighborhood, If Memory Serves, The Philanderer, The Cherry Orchard, and Lend Me a Tenor (on Broadway with her husband Tony Shalhoub).

Brooke's film career took off with a break-through role opposite Richard Gere and Sam Shepard in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978). She also starred in Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and Cuba with Sean Connery (1979). Other film credits include Tell Me a Riddle (1980), The Dead Zone opposite Christopher Walken (1983), repeating her off-Broadway role in the film version of Kevin Wade's romantic comedy Key Exchange (1985), and Gas Food Lodging (1992).

On television, she appeared in Family (1976), Special People (1984), the miniseries Lace (1984) and Lace II (1985), Moonlighting (1985), Thirtysomething (1987), The Lion of Africa (1988), three episodes of Monk (2002), and BrainDead (2016).

Polly Draper is an award-winning actress, writer, producer, and director, who first became known for her work on ABC Television's hit series Thirtysomething (1987-1991). Her television credits also include starring opposite John Ritter in Heartbeat (1993), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Monk (2002), The Big C (2010), and writing and starring in an episode of Bar Karma (2010).

Polly's starring role in the Off-Broadway production of Four Dogs and a Bone (1993) alongside Mary-Louise Parker won her a New York Magazine Award for Best Broadway Actress. She was one of the stars of the Broadway production of Brooklyn Boy (2003) and in her self-penned play Getting Into Heaven (2003) at New York's Flea Theater.

In 1998, she wrote and starred in The Tic Code, a film about a jazz musician who has Tourette's syndrome and is based somewhat on her husband, Michael Wolff, who is afflicted with the disorder.

Sons Alex and Nat Wolff were the stars of, and wrote and performed the music for, Nickelodeon's top-rated series The Naked Brothers Band (2007), which Draper created, wrote, executive produced, and directed.

Tony Shalhoub, played the role of detective Adrian Monk in the USA TV series Monk (2002-2009), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series. He won the 2019 Emmy Award for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Abe Weissman in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Tony's film credits include Barton Fink (1991), Addams Family Values (1993), Men in Black (1997), Paulie (1998), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Men in Black II (2002), Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003), Cars (2006), Cars 2 (2011), and Cars 3 (2017).
For his work on Broadway, Tony has received four Tony Award nominations, including Best Featured Actor in a Play for Conversations with My Father (1992) and Golden Boy (2013), and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for Act One (2014). In 2018, he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance as Tewfiq Zakaria in The Band's Visit.

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