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BACKGROUND
The idea for ‘My Year Without Sex’ came after mother and
daughter team, Beverly Blankenship and Jessica Gerger were working on their
production of ‘The Feigned Courtesans’ by Aphra Behn in London, 2002. The production was
directed by Beverly and Jessica played a character called Mr Tickletext, a
vain, sanctimonious, hypocritical and sexually deviant Pastor travelling
through Rome with his ward Sir Signal Buffoon. This comedy of sex and
mistaken identity was set in the 1600’s.
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Beverly came up with the idea of turning Mr Tickletext
into Mrs Tickletext and creating a new story set in the present day. She and
Jessica developed some scenarios and characters that might appear along
the way, focusing on the two main protagonists Mrs Winifred Tickletext and
her accidental and long suffering companion Mandy - a wet, vegan, animal
liberationist who suffers from copious amounts of bad luck. |
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Beverly and Jessica gathered together all the writing
talent they could muster from around the globe - friends, family,
professional writers – and sent them a list of scene ideas and
character breakdowns. Each person was given free licence to write
any scene they wished, in any style they wanted - monologues, dumb
shows, scenes with a cast of thousands etc. Beverly and Jessica
would then worry about how to combine and stage them all, with only
one actor… The various scenes were then chopped up and rearranged,
with several new ones being added along the way, resulting in a wild
journey around the globe, the fruit of many people’s imaginations:
‘My Year Without Sex’. |
PRODUCTIONS
The first production of ‘My Year Without Sex’ was staged
in Vienna, at the Drachengasse Theater as part of the Vienna Festival in May 2007.
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With a larger-than-life suitcase dominating the stage and
serving not only as a case, but as a bus, taxi, living room, life raft and
projection surface, the production also made clever use of video projection
and sound to complement the fifteen characters being played by Jessica.
A huge success, the production played to full houses
throughout the run. Strong reviews and industry feedback encouraged Jessica
and Beverly to further develop the piece. |
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The production was then presented for one night only in London on
Sunday 14 October 2007 at The Venue theatre in Leicester Square.
Nest stop was Australia, where the production was
presented at the Court House theatre, as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival in March 2008 and the
Northcote Town Hall as part of the Melbourne
International Comedy Festival in April 2008. |
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PRAISE FOR
THE SHOW AFTER THE VIENNA PRODUCTION
“A comedienne is born”
“While the festival opened with much ado in Vienna, a
quiet guest appearance by a London actress showed unexpected greatness”
“Flying role changes, wonderful facial expressions, a
mass of jokes that rain down staccato-like”
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