Susie Essman

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Susie Essman of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm stars as Elaine Navazio in Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers at Williamstown Theatre Festival, running on the Nikos Stage from July 11 through July 22. Also in the production, directed by Jessica Stone (WTF’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), are Brooks Ashmanskas as Barney Cashman, Leslie Bibb (Iron Man) in the role of Bobbi Michele, and Obie Award winner Heidi Schreck (How the World Began, Circle Mirror Transformation) as Jeanette Fisher.

Barney Cashman is a middle-aged restaurant manager who has a very nice married existence. But he’s tired of existing; he wants to live — before it’s too late. Maybe one afternoon of passion could be so exhilarating, so vivid, that the memory alone would sate his desire for more. Three women, three afternoons, three shots at living in Technicolor, in this 1969 comedy, the original cast of which included James Coco (later replaced by Dom DeLuise) and Linda Lavin.

As she did with her lauded WTF production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, director Jessica Stone reveals the humanity and the hilarity in Last of the Red Hot Lovers, this oft-overlooked early work of Neil Simon.The film version starred Alan Arkin and Sally Kellerman.