Valerie Harper to Play Tallulah Bankhead in Broadway-Bound Looped

Four-time Emmy Award winner Valerie Harper will portray Tallulah Bankhead in the pre-Broadway engagement of Matthew Lombardo’s new comedy Looped, set to begin previews at Florida’s Cuillo Centre on December 31, with opening scheduled for January 7, 2009. The show, directed by Rob Ruggiero, will run through February 15 in anticipation of a Broadway bow to be announced for summer 2009. Harper will be joined during the pre-Broadway run by Tony Award winner Jarrod Emick.

Looped is the story of Bankhead, one of Hollywood’s original celebrity “bad girls.” The first of the tabloid queens, Bankhead was notorious for wild partying and scandalous affairs with fellow male and female celebrities. The show follows Bankhead as she enters a film studio to re-record or “loop” a single line of dialogue for her final film, Die, Die My Darling, an event that spurs a showdown between an uptight sound editor and the outrageous star.

Harper has appeared on Broadway in Take Me Along, Wildcat, Subways Are for Sleeping, Paul Sills’ Story Theatre, Metamorphoses and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. She is best known for her Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the subsequent spin-off series Rhoda. Additional TV credits on her extensive resume include Valerie, City, Melrose Place, That ‘70s Show, Less Than Perfect and ‘Til Death.

Emick’s Broadway credits include Ring of Fire, The Boy From Oz, The Rocky Horror Show, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and Damn Yankees, for which he won the 1994 Tony, Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards. He has also appeared on London’s West End in The Full Monty. Television credits include LA Firefighters, Andersonville and Pacific Palisades.

Looped’s creative team includes Adrian W. Jones scenic design, Alex Jaeger costume design, Michael Gilliam lighting design, Michael Hooker sound design, and Charles LaPointe hair and wig design.

The show is produced by Tony Cacciotti and David Steiner in association with Bob Cuillo.