Casting announcment - Valerie Harper and Chad Allen in LOOPED!

Star casting anno0unced for the Playhouse's new production of LOOPED:

Valerie Harper (Tallulah Bankhead) is a four-time Emmy Award-winner Valerie Harper achieved fame as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the spin-off series Rhoda. During her nine years as the character "Rhoda," she was the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, Harvard University Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year Award, Hollywood Women's Press Club "Golden Apple" Award, and a Photoplay Gold Medal Award. In 2000, Valerie reprised the role of Rhoda Morgenstern (along with Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards) in the ABC television movie Mary and Rhoda, which attracted nearly 18 million viewers. In 1987 she was seen as "Valerie Hogan" in the then-titled NBC series Valerie (later The Hogan Family) and also starred in the 1990 CBS series City and in the 1994 CBS series The Office. She has appeared as a special guest star on various television series. Throughout her career, Valerie has continued to work in the theatre. She performed with various companies of Second City and Story Theatre in many venues all over the country and in Canada. In 1970 she was a member of the original stage production of Story Theater in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum and opened with the show in New York when it moved to Broadway. During the run at the Ambassador Theater, Paul Sills opened his second production: Ovid's Metamorphoses (also to rave reviews) to run in repertory with Story Theater. Most happily, Valerie was a part of this joyous theatrical experience as well. In the mid-seventies, she played Los Angeles' James Doolittle Theatre and later toured in Dear Liar with Anthony Zerbe (a play comprised of a lifetime of letters between George Bernard Shaw and the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell). In 1983 she toured Florida with Zev Bufman's production of Agnes of God playing The Psychiatrist. In the mid-nineties Valerie starred in the New York production of Death Defying Acts by Elaine May and Woody Allen. At this time, Valerie and her husband Tony Cacciotti began developing a one-woman play based on the life and work of Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning author of, among many works, The Good Earth. Valerie co-wrote and performed the play All Under Heaven in New York (1999), in Los Angeles (2000) and across the country. In 2001 Valerie was back on Broadway starring in Charles Busch's hilarious comedy The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. She played "the Wife" (Marjorie Taub) for a year on Broadway and then for another year in the National Tour. Having completed her cross-country tour of Golda's Balcony, Valerie is continuing as Golda Meir for the film version of William Gibson's play.



Chad Allen (Danny Miller): Pasadena Playhouse debut. Chad Allen began his acting career working on a succession of popular television series including St. Elsewhere, Our House, My Two Dads and Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. In 1995, he co-founded the Creative Outlet theatre company in L.A. and starred in their first production, Biloxi Blues. He appeared in the L.A. production of Change at Babylon and Temporary Help in Westport, CT; Seattle; and “Off-Broadway” at the Revelation Theatre. He produced and starred in the L.A. premiere of Terence McNally's Corpus Christi. Most recently, he starred in Little Dog Laughed at TheaterWorks in Hartford, CT. Allen has appeared in the independent films End of the Spear, Downtown: A Street Tale, Do You Wanna Know a Secret, Paris, What Matters Most and Getting Out. Allen’s production company, Mythgarden, recently produced a critically-acclaimed 2007 Sundance Film Festival film, Save Me, (in which Mr. Allen co-starred and produced with Judith Light) to be released nationwide sometime late August to early September.