CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: Hasty Pudding Theatricals has named Jennifer Coolidge the recipient of their Woman of the Year Award. The award is Hasty Pudding’s oldest, and has been bestowed annually since 1951.
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“We are so excited to welcome Jennifer Coolidge back to her hometown and to Harvard, the iconic
setting of Legally Blonde,” awards coordinator Maya Dubin said in a statement. “We know she’ll fit right into the Pudding’s musical spectacular, though she’ll still have to earn her Pudding Pot onstage.”
Coolidge will lead a parade through Harvard Square on Feb. 4 to celebrate her Woman of the Year Award. Hasty Pudding will then host a celebratory roast of Coolidge and present her with their Pudding Pot. A press conference will follow, and Coolidge will then attend Hasty Pudding’s production of Cosmic Relief.
Coolidge is best known for her work in film and television, including her recent Emmy-winning turn on HBO’s The White Lotus. But she is also a nine-year veteran of L.A.’s Groundlings improv and sketch comedy troupe and has performed on Broadway twice: in The Women in 2001-02 and in Elling in 2010. Coolidge is an alumna of Emerson College and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Founded in 1770, Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard University is a performing arts organization and an advocate for satire and discourse as tools for change worldwide. Each year they a produce a student-written musical burlesque, the Pudding Show.