As previously reported, Looped will launch Jan. 24-Feb. 6, 2013, in Hartford, CT, at the Bushnell Performing Arts Center. It will then play Fort Lauderdale Feb. 26-March 3, 2013. Additional tour dates and casting have not been announced.
Rob Ruggiero, who also directed Harper in the Broadway production of Looped, will repeat his work for the tour. The play centers on Bankhead late in her career, when she is called into a sound studio in 1965 to re-record (or "loop") one line of dialogue for what would be her last film.
Looped played a brief Broadway engagement in 2010, closing after 27 previews and 25 regular performances at the Lyceum Theatre. At the time, producers were hopeful for a future tour of the work.
"I am thrilled to be resuming the role of Tallulah Bankhead in a play that has brought me so much joy and excitement," Harper said in a statement. “I love playing this role. Looped has been such a fun and rewarding journey and I am so looking forward to returning to Hartford and bringing this hysterically funny comedy to Bushnell audiences."
Tony Cacciotti, Ann Cady Scott and The Tallulah Organization in association with The Pasadena Playhouse produce the tour that will feature the work of several original Broadway creative team members including scenic designer Adrian Jones, costume designer William Ivey Long and sound designer Michael Hooker. Michael Gilliam will design lighting for the tour. Looped received its world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2008, followed by a stop at the Cuillo Center for Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Arena Stage in Washington, DC and finally Broadway. Harper received a Tony Award nomination for her performance.
Harper is a four-time Emmy Award winner famous for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the spin-off series, "Rhoda." She performed with various companies of Second City in many venues all over North America. In 1970 she was a member of the original stage production of Story Theater in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum and on Broadway. During the run at the Ambassador Theater, Paul Sills opened his second production: Ovid's Metamorphoses, also featuring Harper, to run in repertory with Story Theater. In the mid-1970s she played Los Angeles' James Doolittle Theatre and later toured in Dear Liar with Anthony Zerbe.
She 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." She co-wrote and performed that play All Under Heaven (directed by Ruggiero) in New York (1999), in Los Angeles (2000) and across the country. In 2001 Harper was back on Broadway starring in Charles Busch's 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. She completed her cross-country tour of Golda's Balcony and is continuing as Golda Meir for the film version of William Gibson's play.
For tickets to the Fort Lauderdale engagement visit parkerplayhouse.com.
Check out Playbill.com's video feature with Valerie Harper.
