Two of NY's funniest women dish on everything from marriage, motherhood, Botox, and the current deer population in the Hamptons.
Lenny Babbish: Musical Director
Angela LeGreca is the winner of six consecutive MAC awards (NYC’s ‘Oscar’ for outstanding live performance) in the Outstanding Comedienne, Musical Comedy, and Variety Show categories. She has performed everywhere from Carolines comedy club to Carnegie Hall, and has played to rave reviews and sold-out shows in top clubs, theatrical venues and corporate settings--from Feinstein’s, the Algonquin, and Town Hall to venues in Atlantic City, Palm Beach, and Tahiti.
In addition to her career as a comedian, singer, and writer, Angela is currently a producer at NBC’s Today—the country’s top-rated morning news show, co-anchored by Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira. For nine years Angela was with ABC-TV’s The View, first as the regular audience warmup personality, and then as a staff writer, writing and producing the show’s popular “Hot Topics’ segments with Meredith Vieira, the show’s moderator.
On television Angela has appeared several times on The View (including Joy Behar’s ‘Comedy Corner’). Other TV credits include: Law & Order, Lifetime’sGirls Nite Out, the NBC mini-series A Woman Named Jackie, VH-1, Good Day New York, and Comedy Central. Last New Year’s Eve Angela co-hosted a webcast for MSN.COM live from Times Square. She has also recorded numerous voiceovers and promos for The View, HBO, and Nickelodeon, and has appeared in national and regional TV commercials.
Angela has a knack for assembling great talent; for years she hosted and produced a popular and critically-acclaimed variety show called “Monday Nite Madness” featuring New York’s top comics, singers and songwriters. Monday Nite Madness won two MAC awards for Outstanding Variety Show and was literally the talk of the town. Angela also wrote and produced a mock Friars Club Roast for the USA network that featured Henny Youngman (in his last TV appearance), Pat Cooper, Jeffrey Ross, Freddie Roman, and others.
Angela writes most of her own standup and stories, and often collaborates with others to write songs. She has written for the National Lampoon Radio Hour, where she recorded sketches and voiceovers with Richard Beltzer, Jon Lovitz and Chris Malone. For years her clever fashion quips appeared weekly in the STAR magazine’s popular “Worst of the Week” page. Her humorous and not-always-so-humorous essays and articles have been published in ELLE Magazine, Rock Photo Magazine, and the Smith College Quarterly among others. Angela currently works with Meredith Vieira on her blog (“Meredith Today”) which posts weekdays on iVillage.com.
If you are in the Hamptons, Nantucket, or Vail, you can catch Angela’s interviews on PLUM-TV when her series “Laugh Out Loud with Angela LaGreca” airs. She has interviewed Robert Klein, Joy Behar, Mario Cantone, John Pinette, and other notable performers.
Angela grew up in Westchester and graduated from Smith College where she majored in Government. (Always playing against type, Angela was the first non-music major at Smith to give a classical voice recital.) She resides in Manhattan and is an active member of the New York Friars Club.
Julie Halston is one of the theatre’s busiest and most well-known actresses. She most recently performed in the Tony-Award winning Broadway musical Anything Goes appearing as the hilarious Evangeline Harcourt.
Last season she received a Drama Desk Nomination for her acclaimed performance in Charles Busch’s smash hit play, The Divine Sister.
Her range and resume includes Broadway musicals such asGypsy, Hairspray, The Boys from Syracuse and Anything Goes as well as hit revivals such as On the Twentieth Century (co-starring Anne Heche and Alec Baldwin), The Women and The Butter and Egg Man.
Primarily known as a comedic actress, she nonetheless has garnered kudos for her work in the plays The Vagina Monologues; Love, Loss, and What I Wore; and Olive and The Bitter Herbs.
Miss Halston is a three-time Drama Desk Nominee, a two-time Outer Critics Nominee and a two-time Drama League Nominee.
Her theatrical life originated when she and renowned playwright, Charles Busch, helped found the now legendary Off-Broadway company, Theatre-in-Limbo, where she co-starred with Mr. Busch in many of the productions, including Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Red Scare on Sunset, The Lady in Question, and Shanghai Moon. Both she and Mr. Busch were among the first recipients to receive the designation “Legend of Off-Broadway” from the Off- Broadway Theatre Alliance and an Excellence in the Theatre Award from Abingdon Theatre Company.
In addition to her prestigious theatrical career, she is known to television audiences as Bitsy Von Muffling on “Sex and The City,” Tina Carmello on “The Class,” and Antigone Carruthers on the updated PBS children’s show, “The Electric Company.”
Miss Halston is also known for her award-winning comedic solo shows which she has performed all over the country. In New York, her solo shows have been extended five times at the legendary Birdland Jazz Club due to her popularity.
As if not busy enough, she co-authored (with Donna Daley) the book, Monologues for Show-Offswhich is now being used by colleges, casting agents, and performers for audition material in all media.
They are currently adapting their success with this book into a play.
Miss Halston lives in New York with her husband, Ralph Howard, the anchorman for Howard Stern’s Howard 100 News Department.
She is devoted to the non-profit organization The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, which helped her husband enormously after his own diagnosis and subsequent successful lung transplant.
The Friar's Foundation
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