ENTERTAINMENT
An Interview with
LISA LAMPANELLI The Queen of Mean Comes Clean
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realized I was ready to do something different,” Lampanelli explains. Those stories eventually took shape as I PUT UP [ON TWITTER] Lampanelli’s first theatrical production, THAT WESTBORO a one-woman show called, “Fat Girl Interrupted” that she wrote with Zweibel. CHURCH ISN’T REALLY The show, directed by Tony winner A CHURCH, IT’S John Rando, chronicles Lampanelli’s JUST A SHITTY SIGNstruggle with body image, food and men, often giving audiences a rare glimpse of MAKING COMPANY. the woman behind the comic. “Basically, THEY WERE BEING VICIOUS. during my stand up I make fun of people AND THEN, WHEN I WAS about surface things, stuff you can see, COMING TO TOPEKA, THEIR but in Fat Girl Interrupted, I delve a BACK YARD, THEY STARTED lot deeper. I show a different side of SAYING THEY WERE GOING myself.” But she is quick to point out TO COME OUT AND PROTEST. that it’s not all serious. “You should be I COULDN’T STOP prepared to laugh a lot, but also to be THEM, SO I THOUGHT touched. It’s more emotional.” “I understand what it is like to never OF DONATING A fit in, to feel like there is something not THOUSAND DOLLARS right about you,” she explains. That’s IN EACH PROTESTOR’S why off stage, Lampanelli supports causes like the Gay Men’s Health Crisis NAME TO GMHC, (GMHC) and serves as an outspoken ‘CAUSE THAT WILL STICK IT TO (could she be anything else?) advocate THEM. I WANTED THEM TO KNOW, for others who have experienced even IF YOU COME OUT TO PROTEST greater isolation in society. THE GAYS, YOU’RE GOING TO END This was never more evident than UP HELPING THE GAYS in 2011, when she decided to take on Westboro Baptist Church. Having learned that they intended to protest outside her gig in Kansas, Lampanelli --SHE EXPLAINED IN A 2011 decided that she would donate $1000 to INTERVIEW WITH the Gay Men’s Health Crisis for every THE VILLAGE VOICE. person that showed up to protest. “I’d like to say this idea came from on the receiving end of the abuse he my love of gays, which part of it did. But it also came from my wish to stick it inflicted.” Get ready to bend over, Mr. Phelps. to these sick douchebags. Their idea of Lisa Lampanelli will perform religion and sexuality is so fucked up!” “Fat Girl Interrupted” at Andrew When asked her thoughts about the Johnson Theater in Nashville, TN recent death of the founder of Westboro on Friday, July 25 at 7:00pm and Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, she simply 9:30pm, and on Saturday, July 26 at said “I do believe in an afterlife of sorts 7:00pm & 9:30pm. and however he comes back, he will be
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But three years ago, Lampanelli, comedy’s reigning “Queen of Mean,” was ready to abdicate her throne. “I had done Radio City. I had done Carnegie Hall, and The Celebrity Apprentice,” Lampanelli recalled. “I said to myself ‘What else can I do?’ I was ready to retire. I had done everything.” That’s when she met Alan Zweibel. Zweibel, who produced “700 Sundays” with Billy Crystal, convinced her to do a onewoman show after learning about her personal struggles with food and men. “I started telling him my stories about my addiction to food and men and
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hether its jokes about racial minorities (“‘My black boyfriend says the bigger the cushion the sweeter of a pushin.’ Bull! He just wants something to hide behind when the cops start shooting!”) or the LGBT community or espousing the benefits of being with a fat man (“You always know when they’re ready for sex, ‘cause naked he looked like one of them butterball turkeys with the little pop-up timer”), Lisa Lampanelli is an equal opportunity offender. And audiences love it!
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The candidate with a proven record of Fairness Civility & Justice • Two Term Metro Councilman at Large • Supreme Court Rule 31 Listed Mediator • • Voted Nashville’s “Best Attorney” 4 times by the readers of the Nashville Scene • • Endorsed by the Nashville Firefighters •
JULY 2014
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Paid for by Adam Dread for General Sessions Judge, Sonata Stanton-Rayburn, Treasurer
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