Ricki Lake and filmmaker Abby Epstein want you to have a chance at what should be the most emotionally rewarding experience of your life, having a baby. It should be without the frustrations and the horrors that can occur in the delivery room.
Web site: www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com
Event Info:
The Business of Being Born - Special Benefit Screening
Join the Bay Area Homebirth Collective for the San Francisco Premiere event with Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein in attendance! Come early at 5:15 PM to learn how you can help Save St. Lukes hospital & protect women's birth choices. Then join us for the After Party with Ricki & Abby.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
3 PM and 7 PM screenings
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th St., SF
Tickets are sliding scale $20-100, min $50 purchase for film & After-Party with Ricki Lake.
For tickets: www.bobbsf.eventbrite.com
Abby Epstein, Director and Producer:
Abby Epstein made her film directing debut at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with the award-winning documentary feature "Until the Violence Stops." The film, featuring playwright and activist Eve Ensler, explored how "The Vagina Monologues" grew into an international grassroots movement called V-Day to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls. After premiering at Sundance, the film played at the Miami, Santa Barbara, Maui and Locarno Film Festivals and won the Golden Audience Award at the Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver. "Until the Violence Stops" had its broadcast premiere on Lifetime Television in a commercial-free presentation and received a Gracie Allen and an Emmy Award.
Ms. Epstein began her career as a theater director in Chicago where she founded Roadworks Productions and premiered works by Eric Bogosian, Patrick Marber and Mike Leigh, earning over twenty Joseph Jefferson Awards. Returning to NYC in 1998, Ms. Epstein became Resident Director of the Broadway musical "Rent" and directed the "Rent" premieres in Mexico City, Barcelona and Madrid. As associate director of "The Vagina Monologues," she directed over 100 celebrity actresses in the New York production and then directed the national tour, for which she received a National Broadway Theater Award Nomination. She also directed productions of The Vagina Monologues in Toronto and Mexico City, where it has been a sold-out hit since 2001.
Other stage credits include "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" for the 2004 Fòrum Universal de les Cultures in Barcelona, the NY premiere of "Jessica Goldberg's Stuck" and the LA premiere of Mike Leigh's "Ecstasy," which received an LA Weekly Award and ran for six months at the Odyssey Theater. Also in Los Angeles, Ms. Epstein collaborated with actress/writer Darlene Hunt to develop and direct the stage comedy "Platonically Incorrect," featuring "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes. "Platonically Incorrect" went on to become a pilot for ABC Television.
Ricki Lake, Executive Producer:
Born in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, Ricki Pamela Lake developed an early interest in performing. After studying at New York's Professional Children's School in her teens, and a year spent at Ithaca College in New York, she decided to pursue acting fulltime. Soon after leaving college, Lake received a call to audition for writer-director John Waters' musical comedy "Hairspray."
Lake's performance as the film's zaftig heroine, Tracy Turnblad, won over audiences and critics, earning her a 1988 Independent Spirit Award nomination for best actress and roles in films such as John Waters' "Cry-baby" and "Cookie," the top-grossing comedy "Working Girl," "The Acclaimed Drama Last Exit to Brooklyn," "Where the Day Takes You" and "Inside Money Zetterland," as well as a season on TV's "China Beach."
In 1992 Ricki appeared in a pilot for a new daytime talk show and by the following year she had moved to New York and begun taping "The Ricki Lake Show" for Sony Pictures Television.
Even as her talk show became a phenomenon, Lake continued to pursue acting roles, appearing in the romantic comedy "Mrs. Winterbourne," John Waters' Serial Mom and Cecil B. Demented and in a recurring role as Stephanie Heffernan on the hit sitcom "King of Queens." 2002 saw her onstage at Madison Square Garden in a celebrity-studded performance of "The Vagina Monologues."
Since the wrap of "The Ricki Lake Show" in August 2004, Lake has continued to act in various film and TV projects. This year she shared her love for games with millions as the host of the CBS hit, "Gameshow Marathon" and she recently completed Kurt Voelker's independent film, "Park," opposite William Baldwin and Cheri Oteri.
