I have not seen Show Girls. Pretty much all I know about it is that Jessie from Saved by the Bell licks a pole, ices her nipples, and generally does a bunch of stuff of which Principal Belding would most certainly not approve. And though I didn't have the requisite pop culture trauma behind me of having watched the infamous NC-17 stinker, I found plenty to laugh about in the 90ish minutes it took to watch The Ringwald Theatre's ribald, raunchy, ridiculous Snow Girls.
Richard Read's Snow Girls is an "adaptation" of Show Girls in which, tough, no-nonsense Nomey Maloney (played by the resilient Joe Bailey - complete with a corrective boot on his foot due to a dramatic high-heel related injury opening night) heads to The Pole with dreams of being a dancer. There she meets her best friend Ebony Mahogany (the hilariously manic Genevieve Jona), and a wild cast of club owners, strippers, scandal-makers and general oglers, and she works her way up from her humble stripper beginnings to finding her own spotlight and, of course, herself. Awww...
Words fail me as I try to describe Joe Bailey's star turn as the ambitious young starlet, so I guess I'll have to make some up: He is camptastically dragliciously raunch-tastic! A true master (and obviously a true fan) of the style, he wiggles and mugs, and is constantly breaking the fourth wall to let the audience in on Nomey's bizarre little world to great comic effect. Lisa Melinn vamps it up wonderfully as the evil nemesis Krystal Berger, and though her off-book improvisation is not always as skilled as Bailey's, her tongue choreography is quite impressive! Brenton Herwat is delightfully skeevy as Kyle McLachlan (yes... THAT Kyle McLachlan). And Genevieve Jona's obsessive, awkward Ebony Mahogany is a mile-a-minute laugh riot. Jeff Mansk, Alex D. Hill and Dan Morrison fill out the cast of characters with great commitment, variety and outright weirdness.
Director Dyan Bailey clearly had a great time with this cast, creating the messy mish-mash of scripted and unscripted in this outlandish homage. Dan Morrison's Scenic Design and Brandy Joe Plambeck's lighting design are simple, but also in on the jokes, giving the cast plenty to play with as they move from location to location... sort of. But the real hero on the technical side is Dyan Bailey's sound design, which may or may not have changed a few Christmas classics in my mind forever.
Now let me be clear: this show is NOT for everyone. "Colorful" wouldn't adequately describe the language, and I'm not sure I can count on my own fingers and toes how many fake boobies I saw tonight. Simply put, Snow Girls is a wild, cross-dressing, fornicating, pole-dancing orgy of an evening. And let's be honest: who expects a parody of Show Girls to be family programming? But, if you are up for fast-flying, over-the-top, NC-17-inspired silliness, there is no better place for it than The Ringwald!
Snow Girls (adapted by Richard Read; Director: Dyan Bailey; Nomey Maloney: Joe Bailey; Krystal Berger: Lisa Melinn; Kyle McLachlan: Brenton Herwat; Ebony Mahogany: Genevieve Jona; Gay & Cocoa: Jeff Mansk; Elvis & Others: Alex D. Hill; and Jack Frost & Others: Dan Morrison) continues at The Ringwald Theatre through December 16. Tickets range from $10-$20, and students can claim $5 off (except Mondays). For more information, visit www.theringwald.com.
Richard Read's Snow Girls is an "adaptation" of Show Girls in which, tough, no-nonsense Nomey Maloney (played by the resilient Joe Bailey - complete with a corrective boot on his foot due to a dramatic high-heel related injury opening night) heads to The Pole with dreams of being a dancer. There she meets her best friend Ebony Mahogany (the hilariously manic Genevieve Jona), and a wild cast of club owners, strippers, scandal-makers and general oglers, and she works her way up from her humble stripper beginnings to finding her own spotlight and, of course, herself. Awww...
Words fail me as I try to describe Joe Bailey's star turn as the ambitious young starlet, so I guess I'll have to make some up: He is camptastically dragliciously raunch-tastic! A true master (and obviously a true fan) of the style, he wiggles and mugs, and is constantly breaking the fourth wall to let the audience in on Nomey's bizarre little world to great comic effect. Lisa Melinn vamps it up wonderfully as the evil nemesis Krystal Berger, and though her off-book improvisation is not always as skilled as Bailey's, her tongue choreography is quite impressive! Brenton Herwat is delightfully skeevy as Kyle McLachlan (yes... THAT Kyle McLachlan). And Genevieve Jona's obsessive, awkward Ebony Mahogany is a mile-a-minute laugh riot. Jeff Mansk, Alex D. Hill and Dan Morrison fill out the cast of characters with great commitment, variety and outright weirdness.
Director Dyan Bailey clearly had a great time with this cast, creating the messy mish-mash of scripted and unscripted in this outlandish homage. Dan Morrison's Scenic Design and Brandy Joe Plambeck's lighting design are simple, but also in on the jokes, giving the cast plenty to play with as they move from location to location... sort of. But the real hero on the technical side is Dyan Bailey's sound design, which may or may not have changed a few Christmas classics in my mind forever.
Now let me be clear: this show is NOT for everyone. "Colorful" wouldn't adequately describe the language, and I'm not sure I can count on my own fingers and toes how many fake boobies I saw tonight. Simply put, Snow Girls is a wild, cross-dressing, fornicating, pole-dancing orgy of an evening. And let's be honest: who expects a parody of Show Girls to be family programming? But, if you are up for fast-flying, over-the-top, NC-17-inspired silliness, there is no better place for it than The Ringwald!
Snow Girls (adapted by Richard Read; Director: Dyan Bailey; Nomey Maloney: Joe Bailey; Krystal Berger: Lisa Melinn; Kyle McLachlan: Brenton Herwat; Ebony Mahogany: Genevieve Jona; Gay & Cocoa: Jeff Mansk; Elvis & Others: Alex D. Hill; and Jack Frost & Others: Dan Morrison) continues at The Ringwald Theatre through December 16. Tickets range from $10-$20, and students can claim $5 off (except Mondays). For more information, visit www.theringwald.com.