No boys allowed?

Denver playwrights Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein bring their hit Fringe show to the MTC Warehouse for a very special run

They look a little old for a single bed… Actresses Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein in Girls Only: The Secret Comedy of Women. Terry Shapiro

Dear Diary: I’m looking for a perfect way to spend an evening out with the girls. What should I do? Answer: Girls Only.

Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein, the creators/performers of the 2007 Fringe Festival hit Girls Only: The Secret Comedy of Women, have returned to Winnipeg, and they’re up to their old tricks.

Women: prepare yourselves to laugh to the point of tears while you reminisce about your awkward teenage years and everything in between.

The show pokes fun at everything women do, from the silly but endearing entries in our diaries, to the great amounts of useless things we carry in our purses and to how awkward we feel when putting on pantyhose. Gehring and Klein help the mostly all-female audience take a step back, appreciate some of our quirky characteristics as women and for one night be unafraid to laugh at ourselves.

Joking aside, Girls Only is not all fun and games but has many endearing and tender moments that will tug at your heartstrings. There were also points in which I felt like I was at a feminist rally, surrounded by throngs of girls clapping and cheering for everything we are as women, from the silly to the sexy.

If you’re a male and want to see this show, expect a laugh, but also prepare to be singled out. With few males in the audience, the ladies’ attention can’t help but be drawn there, including the actors who make light of the fact that despite the show’s title, and warning, there are still men in attendance.

The idea for Girls Only was conceived when Gehring and Klein, both from a Denver improv comedy troupe, read each other their junior high diaries. The girls soon realized that they had enough material for a show. The show is designed to be a sort of fun slumber party throwback experience, for both the actors and their audience.

With elements of improv, sketch comedy, audience interaction, video clips, singing and interpretive dance, Girls Only is not the type of show you will see every day in Winnipeg; unless it’s Fringe season, that is. I think that is exactly why Girls Only works: because it is different, and if anything, this is the type of show the city’s theatre scene needs to spice it up a bit.

To learn more about the show, the girls and fun crafts you never knew you could make with a maxi pad, visit www.girlsonlycomedy.com

Published in Volume 64, Number 25 of The Uniter (April 1, 2010)

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