13 Things About Ed Carpolotti

Judy Newell portrays Virginia Carpolotti, a widow in her late 60s, in Jeffrey Hatcher’s 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti, the touching and often hilarious story of a woman who has just inherited her deceased husband’s business. The 1996 play was the final installment in Hatcher’s triptych Three Viewings, three monologues set in the same funeral parlor in an unnamed Midwestern town. Hatcher is an American playwright and screenwriter. His plays include Compleat Female Stage Beauty, and a stage adaptation of Tuesdays with Morrie. He wrote the screenplay Casanova for director Lasse Hallstrom, as well as the screenplay for the 2008 film The Duchess. Alabama native Judy Newell began acting in Montgomery at age 14, and studied theater at the University of Alabama. She became a travel professional and pioneered tourism in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, where she lived for seventeen years. In 1986, Judy moved to Los Angeles, resumed her acting studies with Tony Barr and David Paymer, and became a member of AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild. She acted in television commercials, soap operas, and theater, and met her future husband, Jim Newell. The Newells settled in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 2006. Judy has starred in numerous Players Workshop and San Miguel Playhouse productions, including Driving Miss Daisy, Steel Magnolias, It Had to Be You, and Spoon River Anthology.