Comedian Chris Farley’s Legacy Looms Large in The Fatman Cometh

The dramatic life story of comedian Chris Farley has been tapped for the theater. An invitation-only industry reading of The Fatman Cometh: The Life and Death of Chris Farley will take place at off-Broadway’s Players Theatre on February 28, written and directed by Charles Messina.

The Fatman Cometh stars Alan Pagano as Chris Farley and Carlo Rivieccio as Kip Kaplan, a personal manager and an amalgamation of all of the authority figures in Farley’s life and career. The Fatman Cometh takes place in the star’s dressing room in Studio 8-H at NBC's Rockefeller Center studios during the last 18 months of his life.

Pagano’s stage credits include Frankenstein, A Bard's Day's Night, and The Shape of Things; Rivieccio has most recently appeared off-Broadway and across America in Tony and Tina's Wedding and Charles Messina's Joy Riders.

Farley was a member of Chicago's improv hotbed Second City Theatre and went on to spend five years (1990-1995) as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, best remembered for his roles as motivational speaker Matt Foley, a Chicago Bears superfan and a very unlikely Chippendale dancer. His films included Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World 2, Airheads, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy, Coneheads, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, Almost Heroes and Dirty Work. Farley died of a drug overdose in 1997, when he was only 33.