Carol Burnett joins benefit reading of Surviving Grace

Actress/comedienne Carol Burnett has joined the cast of a special ensemble reading of the play Surviving Grace to benefit an Alzheimer’s disease charity. The Carol Burnett Show star will join Marilu Henner, Loni Anderson, Helen Reddy, Elliott Gould, Lou Gossett, Jr. and Brian McNamara onstage in Los Angeles on 25 September (13).
The play was penned by comedy writer Trish Vradenburg and is based on her experiences as she took care of her mother, who died of Alzheimer’s in 1992. The event will serve as a fundraiser for USAgainstAlzheimer’s, the organisation Vradenburg co-founded, which is committed to helping to find a cure for Alzheimer’s by 2020.
Burnett will play the ailing mother, a role she took to instantly.
She tells the Huffington Post, “When I read the play, I instantly loved it. When Trish sent it to me, I thought it was kind of amazing…
“It just so beautifully captures the back and forth in the relationship between the mother and the daughter… I loved the whole dynamic of it.”