Actors Theater Opens Season With A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD

Actors' Theatre opens the 2011-12 season, its 26th, with Susan Claassen's one-woman performance in "A Conversation With Edith Head" from Sept. 16 through Oct. 2 on Stage West at The Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe.

Say the name Edith Head and, if you know anything about movies, you're mentioning the name of an icon. You may not know her face, but her impact on the screen is as momentous as that of the stars for whom she created costumes: Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis and even Robert Redford and Paul Newman, among them.

The play is written by Claassen, who bares a remarkable resemblance to the unprecedented eight-time Oscar® winner, and Paddy Calistro, one of the leading authorities on the life and work of Edith Head and her official biographer based on her experience as a fashion journalist.

Claassen, who also is the managing artistic director of Tucson-based Invisible Theatre, takes her audiences on a delicious behind-the-scenes tour of Head's life with stories about Hollywood's greatest stars that provide an intimate portrait of her own legend. Her one-liners and "Edith-isms" are equally legendary.
Much of the dialogue in "A Conversation With Edith Head" comes directly from the famed designer. When she was asked to write the authorized posthumous autobiography, "Edith Head's Hollywood," Calistro acquired more than 13 hours of recollections recorded by Head, including her own snippy "Edith-isms" as Ms. Head referred to her own sayings. These included "I hate modesty, don't you?" and "Good clothes are not a matter of good luck."

In her six decades, Head worked on more than 1100 films, received 35 Academy Award nominations and helped define glamour in the most glamorous place in the world.
She spent 44 years at Paramount Studios where she worked with the likes of Mae West and Clara Bow as well as Grace Kelly ("To Catch A Thief"), Ingrid Bergman ("Notorious"), Kim Novak ("Vertigo"), Gloria Swanson "Sunset Boulevard"), Sean Connery ("The Man Who Would Be King") and even Steve Martin ("Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid").
She won Oscars for "The Heiress" (1949), "Samson and Delilah" (1950), "All About Eve" (1950), "A Place in the Sun" (1951), "Roman Holiday" (1953), "Sabrina" (1954), "The Facts of Life" (1960) and "The Sting" (1973).

The Los Angeles Times said that "Susan Claassen nails Edie in her one woman show" and the British Theatre Guide called her "utterly captivating".
Single tickets range in price from $20.50 to $39.50. Season tickets for Actors Theatre's six-play packet begin at $168. Five-play and four-play packages also are available.
For information about "A Conversation With Edith Head" and all of Actors Theatre's shows this season, and to purchase tickets, visit www.atphx.org. Tickets also can be purchased at the Herberger Theater Box Office at (602) 252-8497.

For information about "A Conversation with Edith Head," visit www.edithhead.biz.