Flat Earth Theatre Presents Unapologetic Critique of Societal Standards of Beauty FAT PIG by Neil LaBute

Following the recent success of its Elliot Norton Award–winning production of Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson, Flat Earth Theatre boldly confronts societal beauty standards and cultural norms with controversial playwright Neil LaBute’s FAT PIG. FAT PIG will run June 9th – 24th, 2017 at the Mosesian Center for the Arts (formerly known as the Arsenal Center for the Arts), 321 Arsenal Street in Watertown, MA. Tickets can be purchased at https://flatearth.ticketleap.com/fat-pig/ for $25 in advance or at the door, or $10 student rush.

Smart, sexy and fat, Helen lives in a world that judges her for her weight. Her new, conventionally thin, boyfriend Tom quickly becomes enamored with her despite the condemnation of his shallow, often convincing friends that threatens their relationship. Hailed by the New York Times as “the most emotionally engaging and unsettling” of his plays, Neil LaBute's brutal, unapologetic FAT PIG bluntly addresses what people see when they look at bodies – all bodies – and which ones deserve a happy ending.

At this critical moment for the arts, the country, and the world, Flat Earth Theatre believes in the power of representation in theatre, and is proud to produce a play that brutally dissects the effects of fat stigma, and prominently features a fat actress in a leading role. “FAT PIG presents something we don’t see often: a fat woman as the romantic lead,” says director Juliet Bowler. “When we examine representation in the arts, be it dance or music or theater, it’s quite rare to see a larger body on stage as something other than a joke or a cautionary tale.”

“FAT PIG is political,” adds Lindsay Eagle, the actor playing romantic lead Helen. “As the influential fat activist Heather McAllister said, ‘Anytime there is a fat person onstage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it’s political.’”

The “political” nature of FAT PIG reaches beyond the issue of fatness to resonate with most, if not all, ways a person may be othered. “In this play, Helen, the titular ‘fat pig,’ is in many ways the perfect woman for Tom -- except that she’s fat,” says Bowler. “Throughout society, there are people who are alienated, treated as less-than, or outright harmed because of one aspect of their identity, be it gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity or any part of them that does not match up to the dominant paradigm . This story could be about any of those issues.”

FAT PIG continues Flat Earth’s 2016–17 season, “The Underside Exposed,” featuring true-to-life accounts that reveal the darker truths in society, past and present. These productions defiantly expose the prejudice and corruption buried in human nature, addressing potent themes from gender equality at the turn of the century in the March 2017 production of SILENT SKY, to the effects of body image standards on individuals of all types in June 2017’s FAT PIG. FAT PIG is supported in part by the Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation.