(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – Comedienne and bestselling author Alison Larkin will perform a sneak preview of her new show, Alison Larkin LIVE!, at the Mahaiwe on Saturday, May 2, 2015, at 7pm. Amongst other things, Larkin – author of “The English American” – will talk about her adoption and reunion, England, America, life in the Berkshires, parenting and how to brew the perfect cup of tea. Proceeds will benefit the Montessori School of the Berkshires (MSB), supporting the Financial Aid Fund. In recognition of National Foster Care Month, MSB will be donating a portion of regular ticket sales to Berkshire Children & Families, a local agency that connects foster and adoptive families with children in need.

As an actress, Alison Larkin has appeared on and off Broadway with the Royal National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a stand-up comic, she was a regular headliner at the Comic Strip in New York City and the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and spent three years under studio contract to star in her own sitcom with CBS, ABC and Jim Henson productions.

Larkin’s novel, “The English American,” was a Vogue “most powerful book of the season,” a Redbook book club pick of the month, and is under development to be turned into a movie, with Larkin writing the screenplay. Larkin’s unusually wide range of voices can be heard all around the world – from Firesign Theater’s production of The Wonderful World of Oz, in which she co-starred with Annette Bening, Phyllis Diller and John Goodman – to work by James Cameron, the Coen brothers and The Wonderpets.

Since moving to the Berkshires in 2010, Larkin has narrated almost 100 audiobooks including The English American, for which she won an Audiofile earphones award. She received the Best Non-Fiction audiobook of the year award for her narration of Bee Wilson’s Consider the Fork and rave reviews for her narration Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – the 200th anniversary audio edition. Her newest audiobooks – Emma by Jane Austen and the 150th anniversary audio edition of Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, were released on April 17.

Adopted into a loving English family, once she found her birth mother in Bald Mountain, Tenn., Alison became a stand-up comic, because … what else do you do? Her first one-woman show on the subject, from which her novel sprang, played to packed houses and high critical acclaim on both sides of the ocean.

“My parents sent me to Montessori, which I loved as a young child,” says Larkin. “When I heard that the Berkshire Montessori School in Lenox has an adolescent program for 7th and 8th grade, my teenage son went to check it out. The program is truly outstanding and he is blossoming there. I’m thrilled that this evening will make it possible for other children to have the same experience. It’s the kids who are encouraged to think independently who can – and will – change the world.”

 

 

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