Pieces of A …

Kirk Baird

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

Jana Speaker is a looker.

Not just your garden variety hottie, either.

The chesty blonde has been genetically blessed with the kind of looks that men continually point out.

"I go to the grocery and men follow me out to the parking lot to hit on me. (And) in high school I had teachers hit on me," Speaker said in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles.

"It's tough to be a girl nowadays, especially a good-looking girl, because we attract scum."

And it doesn't get any easier with her own gender, either.

"Normally when I meet women, they don't like me. They think I'm perfect," Speaker said. "(Then) they realize I'm not perfect, I just have bigger boobs."

But the 23-year-old actress wasn't always hot.

Speaker recalls when she was plain-looking and kind of nerdy. Suffering from a learning disorder, she heard the taunts of classmates and even had fruit thrown at her head.

"All of a sudden I became hot in junior high school and my whole life changed," she said.

Speaker's story of the pitfalls and perks of being an attractive female is just one of a dozen personal accounts shared in the production "Pieces (of A ...)."

Featuring monologues penned by other equally stunning women, "Pieces (of A ...)" offers tales of being hit on constantly by horny men and, in one case, stalked, to rarely having to pay for drinks and being able to get their way.

Call it a support group for attractive women.

The production premiered in New York, where it had a successful off-Broadway run before switching coasts to play in Los Angeles.

"Pieces (of A ...)" is returning to New York, but not before a two-day run at 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Among the highlights for the Las Vegas shows: Supermodel Rachel Hunter will deliver a monologue of her experiences as, well, a supermodel.

Other celebrities, such as Nicole Richie and "The Sopranos' " Jamie-Lynn DiScala, have participated in previous shows -- which recalls a similar tactic employed by another female-oriented production, "The Vagina Monologues."

In fact, it's tempting to call "Pieces (of A ...)" a "Vagina Monologues" for beautiful women. Except it's not entirely true, insists Brian Howie, creator, director and producer of "Pieces (of A ...)".

"We always get called 'Vagina Monologues' for hot chicks, which is shorthand, but it's not quite accurate," said Howie in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

"There are monologues, but a more accurate comparison is 'Def Poetry Jam,' " he said. "The fact is ... in 'Vagina Monologues' the 12 monologues are all written by the same woman. In our show 10-12 actresses are telling their own true stories in their own ways. There are DJs, clothes, films. It's more of a party atmosphere than if you went to 'Vagina Monologues.' "

Howie first conceived the idea of the play two years ago while living in New York.

"I'd go to a lot of theater (where) every group had their say. Irish guys, gay guys, black guys," he said. "Everybody has their own show except the ones we focus on the most in our society, the pretty girls."

Plus, growing up, Howie noticed that attractive women tended to have "more things happen to them."

"Good, bad, whatever. It didn't happen to be as happy-go-lucky for pretty girls," he said.

While facing some downtime on a film project, Howie created a forum for attractive women to vent about their beauty and ran a newspaper ad looking for "hot" women.

"I saw the casting for this 'Pieces (of A ...)' and I thought, 'What sleazeball put this together?' " said actress Diahnna Nicole Baxter. "It said, 'Are you hot and you know about it and are you willing to write about it?'

"That's what caught my interest, the writing part. That way you have a little more control over what's being said and you get to share your experience."

Baxter auditioned for the play, was cast and has been with the show ever since.

The Las Vegas-born 27-year-old's monologue, however, deals with more than the perils of beauty. She also addresses myths concerning her race.

"It's my experience of being a woman of color and all these different definitions, stereotypes and assumptions -- that I'm hypersexual -- being placed on you in somewhat of a comic context. And also give the audience a taste of my own insecurities."

In fact, most of the monologues play for laughs, while also trying to make a point: It's not easy being pretty.

But don't expect a pity party.

"The show is not, 'woe-is-me, pity me (because) I'm pretty,' " said Cassie Pappas, a 24-year-old natural blond-turned-brunette for the production. "This is what happens to me. This is how I'm perceived in society. There are perks and privileges but there are downsides.

"It humanizes the hot chicks that you look at as an object."

While the show attracts both men and women -- often for different reasons -- the play has been a hit with its namesakes.

"The response has been overwhelming," Howie said. "Thousands sent photos and resumes saying, 'I want to get involved. It's almost like they wanted to be heard.

"For whatever reason, the hot chicks want to talk."