“Calendar Girls,” June 22 through 26

Wednesday, June 22, through Sunday, June 26

Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, 311 Riverview Drive, Clinton IL

Praised by Broadway World as "a true celebration of female friendship and empowerment," as well as "a joyful and spirited production with a moving backdrop of loss," the empowering musical dramedy Calendar Girls makes its area debut with a June 22 through 26 run at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, this enchanting stage piece based on true events and a beloved 2003 film a work that, according to The Guardian, "suggests the story has now achieved its ideal form."

In Calendar Girls, the death of a much-loved husband prompts a group of seven ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women's Institute to do an extraordinary thing. Blasting away all preconceptions of what it is to be in a women's institute, they decide to do an artistic nude calendar to raise money for charity. Upturning preconceptions is a dangerous business, however, and none of them expect the emotional and personal ramifications. But gradually, the making of the fabulous and funny calendar brings each woman unexpectedly into flower. With the musical inspired by the actual W.I. members who famously posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukemia Research Fund in 1999, the true story of the Calendar Girls launched a global phenomenon, a million copycat calendars, an acclaimed 2003 movie starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, and this Tim Firth and Gary Barlow stage work that coined the term "craughing" – the act of crying and laughing at the same time. With its delightful comedy, unforgettable songs, and poignant emotion, Calendar Girls proves that there is no such thing as an "ordinary" woman.

Directing Calendar Girls is the Clinton Showboat's former artistic director and longtime area favorite Jay Berkow, whose previous musicals for the venue have included Church Basement Ladies, Anything Goes, and Beauty & the Beast, and who appeared as an actor in productions including Cabaret and Oliver! Berkow's company of seven featured “calendar girls” boasts the talents of Lora Adams (co-artistic director of Moline's Black Box Theatre), Dorothy Farach, Penny O'Connor, Laurie Carter Rose, Elizabeth Terrel, Kate Thomsen, and Lisa Wipperling, with additional performers including area favorites Grant Alexander Brown, John Chase, Kiara Durbin, James Fairchild, and Katelyn Murphy. Patrick Lee Johnson serves as the production stage manager, and as the Showboat’s producing artistic director James Beaudry said of the Showboat's second summer stage presentation, “There aren’t very many plays as entertaining and as heartfelt as this one. Calendar Girls celebrates and dignifies the friendship and self-love these women come to develop over the course of the story, and it sends the audience out feeling great! I can’t wait to share the play and this phenomenal cast with our community.”

The Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Calendar Girls runs June 22 through 26, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays and Wednesday at 3 p.m. Admission is $18-25, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)242-6760 and visiting ClintonShowboat.org.