DIRECTOR’S NOTES BY ROSE RIORDAN
18 MONTHS AGO.
ME: Lauren, we want to remount The
People’s Republic of Portland next season.
What do you think?!
LAUREN: No.
ME: Come on Lauren, it will be fun. We can
have a few laughs, you can get that yucky—I mean yummy—
coconut kombucha you like so much. Leo can watch receipts
float around and go to the zoo.
LAUREN: Who is this?
ME: Rose.
LAUREN: Who?
ME: ROSE.
LAUREN: What’s the part?
ME: What?
LAUREN: Sounds complicated.
ME: Who is this?
LAUREN: Lauren.
ME: Who?
LAUREN: LAUREN.
ME: …
LAUREN: (laughter).
ME: …
LAUREN: Are you directing?
ME: …
LAUREN: Okay. Fine. I’m … (off phone) LEO! LEO! (click)
LAUREN WEEDMAN
Writer and Performer
Lauren Weedman is an
award-winning comedic
actress, playwright and
author. Between 2001 and
2008 she wrote, produced,
and performed five one
woman shows, earning her
vast critical acclaim, including The Seattle Times’
“Best of Arts” award, The Alpert Award for the
Arts in Playwriting, publication in Women’s
Playwrights: Best of 2002, and the cover of LA
Weekly’s comedy issue. In 2007, Sasquatch Books
released her first book, a collection of comedic
essays, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body
(Tales From a Life of Change) which the Kirkus
Review identified as one of the Top Ten Indy
Books of 2007. Her other solo plays include
Amsterdam the Musical, If Ornaments Had No
Lips, Huu, Rash, Wreckage, Bust and No … You
Shut Up.
Weedman made her television debut in 2001
on Comedy Central’s Emmy-Award winning
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as a featured
Correspondent. During that time, she was
a regular on NPR’s national, political satire
show Rewind and appeared in her solo show,
Homecoming, Off-Broadway at the Westside
Theatre. The New York Times said of Lauren
and Homecoming, “like Bob Newhart in his
early stand-up routines, she’s particularly good
at making her points – and making us feel
clever. Most important, she’s just plain funny,
physically and verbally.”
Since that time, Weedman has appeared in a
wide variety of roles, guest starring on Masters
of Sex, Dads, New Girl and Arrested Development
in recent years. She has also appeared on True
Blood, Reno 9-11, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and
as the recurring show stealer “Horny Patty”
in HBO’s Hung. For two years, she was a cast
member for the long running local-turnednational comedy show Almost Alive for Comedy
Central. In film, she has earned acclaim for her
role in the Judd Apatow-produced The Five-Year
Engagement, opposite Eddie Murphy in Imagine
That for Paramount, and opposite Tina Fey and
Steve Carell in the Fox feature Date Night.
She currently plays Doris, the lovable best friend
on HBO’s dramedy Looking. As one of the only
women in the cast, Weedman’s unique and
energetic persona in a role she calls “essentially
a version of myself,” earned her a Critic’s Choice
nomination and a returning spot as a series
regular in the show’s second season, which
launched in January 2015. @laurenweedman
Lauren Weedman and Rose Riordan during early workshops and tech rehearsals of
The People’s Republic of Portland, 2013.
P 4 | PORTLAND CENTER STAGE THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF PORTLAND