A SEANCE WITH MOM Adds Performances At Chain Studio Theatre

Four April seances did not do the trick, so Award winning actress/playwright/comedian Nancy Redman joins forces with iconic director Austin Pendleton for more sessions of "A SEANCE WITH MOM".

In this new solo comedy/drama, Nadine wants to summon her mother from the grave to tell her something very important. Now running through June 4 at Chain Studio Theatre, 312 W. 36th St.

Nancy's past appearances, all one-woman shows directed by Austin Pendleton, earned her special awards at the United Solo Theatre Festival: Best Comedian Award for both "The Doctor Is Not In" and "CLUTTER: I'm Saving My Life and It's Killing Me" and Best Stand-up for "EMERGENCY A La Carte".  For her solo play "AT WIT'S END: A Home for Retired Comics," directed by Bill Cosgriff, she was honored by United Solo with The Best of The Decade selection.

Actress, stand-up, and playwright, Nancy Redman has rightfully earned a place in the top echelon of the nation's comedians, with appearances on Stage, TV, and Film. TV appearances include Girl's Night Out (Lifetime), The Oprah Winfrey Show, and America's Funniest People (ABC), where she was a two-time prize winner. On film, she had a featured role as Connie in the movie Rescuing Desire, with Allison Janney. Recent acting appearances on stage include roles in Mark Levine's “Fast Food Voices”, produced by the American Renaissance Theater Company; Mothballs, Pills, and Pie and She Got Off The Couch, both at The Dixon Place; Terry Gross, in Meeting Terry Gross, at WorkShop Theater's Mainstage; Monkey, at La MaMa; and For Art, at HB Studio Playwrights Theatre.  Nancy was recently seen as patient Mary Davenport in Nicolas Garr's web series "NURSES STATION". 

In addition to receiving numerous awards for acting and playwriting from her appearances in the United Solo Theatre Festival, the Queens native was honored with a Jerry Kaufman Award by Carol Goldberg and the American Renaissance Theater Company for Excellence in Playwriting for her solo play "AT WITS END: A Home for Retired Comics", directed by Bill Cosgriff.  

Nancy worked regularly as comedian and emcee at Dangerfield's in New York, was "opening act" for Charo, Soupy Sales, Chubby Checker, and Jackie Mason. Nancy entertained the troops for two months after the first Persian Gulf War. She was a member of the Comic Strip Improv Group. Nancy studied acting at HB Studio -- with Austin Pendleton and Karen Ludwig, and playwriting with Donna de Matteo. She studied Improvisation with Second City's Martin Harvey Friedberg, Paul Sills, and Dick Schaal. She has also written comedy for corporate shows, internet companies, and magazines. 

Austin Pendleton is an actor, director, playwright, and teacher.  His most recent achievements include receiving an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, and directing "Describe the Night" by Rajiv Joseph at Steppenwolf in Chicago. He was the director of "Between Riverside and Crazy" by Stephen Adly Guirgis on Broadway, and he performed on Broadway in "The Minutes" by Tracy Letts, Pendleton has acted in about 250 movies and appeared several times in such TV shows as "Homicide", "OZ", and the different versions of "Law and Order."  Onstage in New York he has acted on Broadway ("Choir Boy" at Manhattan Theatre Club; "The Diary of Anne Frank" with Natalie Portman; and as Motel the Tailor in the original cast of Fiddler on the Roof); off-Broadway (Obie winner for "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac"; "Rosmersholm" at Manhattan Theatre Club; "Up From Paradise," a musical by Arthur Miller and Stanley Silverman, at Jewish Rep; "Educating Rita" (with Laurie Metcalf); and off-off Broadway (title roles in "King Lear", "Hamlet", "Richard The Third", "Richard The Second"), and new plays such as "City Girls and Desperadoes", "Dress of Fire" and "Consider the Lilies". 

As a director Pendleton has been represented by the premiere productions of: "A Thousand Pines" by Matthew Greene; "Between Riverside and Crazy" by Stephen Adly Giurgis, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize; "Fifty Words" by Michael Weller, with Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz; Chekhov productions at Classic Stage Company such as "Three Sisters" (for which he won the Obie, and which starred Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jessica Hecht), "Ivanov" which starred Ethan Hawke, and "Uncle Vanya" with Mamie Gummer; "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur" by Tennessee Williams, with Kristine Nielsen and Annette O'Toole; "War of the Roses" (Shakespeare, at HB Studio); "Hamlet' (also at CSC, with Peter Sarsgaard); "The Little Foxes" on Broadway, with Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton (five Tony nominations, one for direction and three for actors, including Ms. Taylor and Ms. Stapleton). He has written three plays: "Orson's Shadow" (which ran off-Broadway for a year and was then done in London); Uncle Bob" (which ran at the Mint Theatre in New York, and was subsequently done in Paris, translated by Jean-Marie Besset), and "Booth", which was done in New York starring Frank Langella.  All of these plays have been published and have been done frequently around the United States. He has taught at HB Studio since 1969.