Coming Clean by Getting Dirty
Freshwater Theatre Company’s "Dirty Girls Come Clean: The Return" covers everything from Eve’s self-awakening in the Garden of Eden to the tale of a woman’s one and only lesbian encounter.
Image credit: Matt Black, Fibonacci Studio
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Dirty Girls Come Clean: The ReturnEve is a 1950s housewife. She is also a stripper, and one of several women featured in Freshwater Theatre Company’s remount of its hit production Dirty Girls Come Clean: The Return.
The show, which opens on Friday at Nimbus Theatre, began simply enough: Freshwater company member Katie Starks wanted to create a production from conversations women in the company were having.
According to Ruth Virkus, Freshwater’s co-artistic director and Dirty Girls co-producer, those conversations involved “a large group of profane women” and often centered on who was the “dirtiest.”
Building on the idea, the company put out a call for scripts to local writers and performers, challenging them to carry the “dirty girl” theme forward. There were apparently quite a few writers just waiting for the right cue.
“The responses we got back were so much different than we thought,” Virkus says. “We got back incredibly intimate personal confessions about real events and real women’s stories.”
The result is a show that covers everything from Eve’s self-awakening in the Garden of Eden to the tale of a woman’s one and only lesbian encounter.
“It has a little bit of everything along the spectrum,” Virkus says. “There are also blatant celebrations of bawdiness like the piece ‘Oh the Fucking You’ll Do,’ a send-up of children’s books.”
After four shows last September elicited an overwhelming response, Freshwater decided to remount Dirty Girls this year. Proceeds will also be directed to the Twin Cities chapter of Dress for Success, which provides women with career training and professional attire.
The remount stays largely true to the original run, with a few exceptions. Due to scheduling conflicts, original contributor and local performer Cynthia Uhrich was replaced by Maggie Sotos. The show also includes a new piece by Sotos about her grandmother hiding her own “dirty” secret: dementia.
Verkus says she hopes the shows reliability, though, will remain unchanged. “If you don’t recognize yourself on the stage, man or woman, you haven’t lived,” Virkus says. “I hope that audiences take away that they’re not alone, and I hope they learn and grow a little bit.”
+ Dirty Girls Come Clean: The Return runs from Friday, Jan. 20 to Saturday, Jan. 28 at Nimbus Theatre, 1517 Central Ave. NE, Mpls. For more information vist freshwatertheatre.com.
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