Julia Sweeney to visit UB Center for the Arts
Published: April 17, 2009, 12:30 am
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Julia Sweeney is perhaps best known for her four seasons on “Saturday Night Live” and her invention of the maddeningly androgynous character named Pat. But a series of life events has propelled Sweeney far beyond the curly-haired, khakis-wearing Pat and the other characters she developed on the show.
After she left “Saturday Night Live” in 1994, Sweeney’s family suffered two medical crises. Her brother Michael was diagnosed with cancer, and shortly afterward, so was she. The plainspoken and often hilarious story of how her offbeat family met the challenges of illness became Sweeney’s first autobiographical monologue, “God Said Ha!”
The title refers to the old lesson that even the most careful plans in life can be disrupted by a Supreme Being with a whimsical sense of humor.
“God Said Ha!” played on Broadway in 1996 and was released in 1998 as a Miramax film produced by Quentin Tarantino. It was named best film at the Seattle Film Festival. Sweeney’s recording of the show earned her a Grammy nomination for best comedy album.
Sweeney will perform a special staged reading of the show starting at 8 p. m. Thursday in the Drama Theater at the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts as part of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare’s 20th annual conference. The show is open to the public. Tickets are $30 for the general public and $15 for students at any school. Tickets are available at the box office and at all Ticketmaster locations, including www.ticketmaster.com . —Anne Neville
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