Humorist Fran Lebowitz Joins the Benefit Cast of Legends!

Humorist Fran Lebowitz has signed on to serve as narrator for the upcoming one-night-only staged reading of James Kirkwood’s Legends!The benefit event for Friends In Deed—the Crisis Center for Life-Threatening Illness, will be held on March 23 at Town Hall, directed by Mark Waldrop.

Lebowitz joins a cast that includes previously announced stars Charles Busch, Whoopi Goldberg, Lypsinka and Bryan Batt in the first-ever New York presentation of the play, featuring a script adapted for this reading by John Epperson aka Lypsinka. Additional casting is still to be announced.

A hilarious comedy about two glamorous, Hollywood has-beens and arch-rivals forced to consider working together on a new project to resuscitate their careers, Legends! is one of the most notorious theatrical properties ever written—notably for what happened behind-the-scenes. Originally presented in a 1986 year-long, pre-Broadway tour starring Carol Channing and Mary Martin, it closed on the road before making it to New York. The juicy on and off-stage antics were chronicled and immortalized in playwright James Kirkwood’s memoir Diary of a Mad Playwright.

Lebowitz first hit the New York literary scene in the early 1970s when Andy Warhol hired her to write a column for Interview. She is the author of the best-selling essay collections Metropolitan Life and Social Studies and the children’s book Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas. A regular guest on late night talk shows, she has also appeared in the semi-recurring role of Judge Janice Goldberg on Law & Order.