Calendar Girls - Chapter 1

‘Calendar Girls’ (CG) the play is based on a true story about a group of middle class, middle aged women in the provincial north of England who raise money for cancer research and treatment by producing a ‘nude’ calendar, featuring themselves – something along the lines of what the ‘fire-ies’ do here. My CG journey started in August 2011 when 11 local women actually repeated the exercise by posing for a nude 2012 calendar as a fundraiser for Ovarian Cancer Australia and also as pre-publicity for the 2012 Garrick production of CG the play. At the time, I was living in Broome, however I sent off for a copy of the calendar, which has graced my home-office all this year. Without wanting to sound crass, I felt as if I knew these women quite well by the time I returned to Perth in early June 2012. Having been a sufferer of ‘theatre withdrawal’ for the preceding 2 years, I was delighted to see, soon after my return that auditions were then being called for CG at Garrick, even though it was not due to go up until late November. I commuted from Spearwood to Guildford to audition. Most of the women on the 2012 calendar (but with some notable exceptions) were also auditioning, along with a number of other women. There were only two of us auditioning for the four male roles, so I was immediately cast as ‘Rod’, long-suffering husband of Chris, one of the two leads. I was also asked to suggest someone to play ‘John’, the other husband who dies of leukemia. I had someone in mind and I tried to do a deal, but it didn’t quite work out. It was about this time that a friend, having noted my blog on this site, welcomed me back to Perth and asked if I was interested in taking a role in his one-act play ‘Can We Still Be Friends’(BF), aimed at the forthcoming festivals. As I had plenty of time before rehearsals for CG were due to start, I accepted. We had not been rehearsing long however, when one evening, while working front-of-house for GRADS, I bumped into another director friend who asked me to audition for ‘M. Butterfly’ (MB). I did, but noted that some rehearsals and performances would clash with rehearsals for CG. Director friend insisted that I not accept the part on offer in MB unless I cleared it with Garrick first. This I did. And so, the stage was set for me to perform in BF while rehearsing MB, then perform in MB while rehearsing CG, then.. the story goes on. This post is getting very long, so I’ll stop there and continue anon.