JANUARY 28, 2010 ISSUE
ASU’s Performing Arts Series Presents Award-Winning Comedienne Lily Tomlin February 20
Award-winning comedienne Lily Tomlin will give a one-woman show at ASU’s Farthing Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 20. Photo submitted
ASU’s 2009-10 Performing Arts Series welcomes the return of the legendary actress/comedian Lily Tomlin to the stage of Farthing Auditorium at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 20. Tomlin’s one-woman show will be an evening of classic favorites. Advance tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for ASU students and students 18 and under and $18 for seniors and ASU faculty and staff. Ticket prices increase at the door on show night.
For tickets or for more information, call the Farthing Auditorium Box Office at 800-841-ARTS (2787) or 828-262-4046 or click to www.pas.appstate.edu.
Lily Tomlin, one of America’s foremost comediennes, continues to venture across an ever-widening range of media, starring in television, theater, motion pictures, animation and video. Throughout her extraordinary career, she has received numerous awards, including six Emmys; a Tony for her one-woman Broadway show, Appearing Nitely; a Tony (Best Actress), Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics’ Circle Award for her one-woman performance in Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; a CableAce Award for executive producing the film adaptation of The Search; a Grammy for her comedy album This is a Recording; Grammy nominations for subsequent albums Modern Scream, And That’s the Truth and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards—the first for the ABC television special Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël and the second for narrating and executive producing the HBO film The Celluloid Closet.
Tomlin was born in Detroit, Mich., and grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of one of the city’s most affluent areas. Although she claimed she wasn’t funny as a child, Tomlin admitted she “knew who was and lifted all their material right off the TV screen.”
After high school, Tomlin enrolled at Wayne State University to study medicine, but her elective courses in theater arts compelled her to leave college to become a performer in local coffee houses. She moved to New York in 1965, where she soon built a strong following with her appearances at landmark clubs such as The Improvisation, Cafe Au Go Go and the Upstairs at the Downstairs, where she later opened for the legendary Mabel Mercer in the Downstairs Room.
Tomlin made her television debut in 1966 on The Garry Moore Show. In December 1969, Tomlin joined the cast of the top-rated Laugh-In and immediately rose to national prominence with her characterizations of Ernestine, the irascible telephone operator, and Edith Ann, the devilish six-year-old.
When Laugh-In left the air, Tomlin went on to co-write, with Jane Wagner, and star in six comedy television specials: The Lily Tomlin Show (1973), Lily (1973), Lily (1974), Lily Tomlin (1975), Lily: SoldOut (1981) and Lily for President? (1982), winning three Emmy Awards and a Writers Guild of America Award. She has guest starred on numerous television shows, including Homicide, X-Files and Will and Grace.
From 1996-1998, Tomlin performed on the popular CBS series, Murphy Brown, playing the role of Kay Carter-Shepley (Murphy’s boss). She is also heard as the voice of the science teacher Ms. Frizzle on the popular children’s animated series, The Magic School Bus, for which she was awarded an Emmy.
Tomlin’s Broadway debut was in the one woman, 1977 play, Appearing Nitely, written and directed by Jane Wagner. Appearing Nitely was later adapted as both an album and an HBO Special.
Tomlin made her film debut as Linnea, a gospel singer and mother of two deaf children in Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975); her memorable performance was nominated for an Academy Award, and both the New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics voted Tomlin Best Supporting Actress. She went on to star with John Travolta as a lonely housewife in Jane Wagner’s Moment By Moment (1978), and then teamed with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton in the late Colin Higgins’ comedy, 9 to 5 (1980). She starred as the happy homemaker who became The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), written by Jane Wagner, and the eccentric rich woman whose soul invades Steve Martin’s body in Carl Reiner’s popular All of Me (1984). In 1988, she teamed with Bette Midler for the comedy Big Business.
In the 1990s, Tomlin appeared as part of an ensemble cast in Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog (1992); starred opposite Tom Waits in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993); and portrayed Miss Jane Hathaway in the screen adaptation of the popular television series The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). In 2000, she starred with Bruce Willis in Disney’s The Kid; in 2002 she played a quirky cameo role in Orange County and in 2004 she co-starred with Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Naiomi Watts and Mark Wahlberg in David O. Russell’s comedy I Heart Huckabees. For her extensive work in film, Tomlin has received the Crystal Award from Women in Film.
In 2002, Tomlin joined the cast of the hit NBC series, The West Wing, playing President Bartlett’s assistant, Debbie Fiderer—a role for which she received a 2003 Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series. Tomlin continued in the role of Debbie through the final season of West Wing (2006). In the fall of 2003, she was honored as the recipient of the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in Washington, D.C. Most recently, Tomlin portrayed Roberta Simmons in six episodes of the hit ABC show, Desperate Housewives (2008-09).
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