Sunday, February 9, 2025

Toledo Rep Brings Calendar Girls to the Stage

The Toledo Rep starts the new year with an award-winning laugh-out-loud comedy reflecting on friendship with a powerful message in Calendar Girls, beginning Friday, January 15.

Based on real life events, and the 2003 Helen Mirren film by the same name, the story revolves around a group of Women’s Institute (WI) members who decide to raise money in memory of their friend Annie’s husband. The gang of gals opt for an unconventional method of charity, creating a calendar featuring the WI women in the nude. When the calendar becomes a success, the fame causes tension between Annie and her best friend, Chris.

“Wonderful True Story”

The play’s director, Wes Skinner, said that one of the greatest rewards directing this show is “being able to tell this wonderful true story and show what these ladies were able to achieve.”

This success story started in 1998 when a group of eleven British women, ranging from 45 to 65 years old, created an alternative calendar that sold over 88,000 copies in the U.K., and 240,000 in the U.S. Rather than raising the original goal of five thousand pounds, the women in the course of ten years raised over three and a half million pounds for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research.

Skinner adds, the story “gives us strength to move on and appreciate friendship even more.”

From England to Toledo

One of the more complicated elements of the play is the strength and accuracy of the British accents. “With each region and county, there are various dialects,” explained Skinner. Finding the correct dialect was a little difficult.

Skinner praises his cast’s professionalism and dedication to the show. Some of the actors, who are off-stage for lengthy periods of time, also work as stage crew and help with off-stage elements of the production.

The dedication to this inspiring story is also shown through the Toledo Rep’s collaboration with the Toledo School for the Arts. Students will be making sunflowers (a common symbol throughout the play) to use as props onstage, as well as to donate to patients at a local cancer center.

Calendar Girls, although sure to get the audience laughing, will also leave viewers with “a better understanding of true friendship and the power it has in all [of] our lives, even more so in the face of adversity.”

Production contains brief nudity and some strong language
January 15-17, 21-24
8pm Fridays & Saturdays, 2:30pm Sundays
$9.75-$19.75
The Toledo Repertoire Theatre, 16 10th St.
419-243-9277 | toledorep.org

The Toledo Rep starts the new year with an award-winning laugh-out-loud comedy reflecting on friendship with a powerful message in Calendar Girls, beginning Friday, January 15.

Based on real life events, and the 2003 Helen Mirren film by the same name, the story revolves around a group of Women’s Institute (WI) members who decide to raise money in memory of their friend Annie’s husband. The gang of gals opt for an unconventional method of charity, creating a calendar featuring the WI women in the nude. When the calendar becomes a success, the fame causes tension between Annie and her best friend, Chris.

“Wonderful True Story”

The play’s director, Wes Skinner, said that one of the greatest rewards directing this show is “being able to tell this wonderful true story and show what these ladies were able to achieve.”

This success story started in 1998 when a group of eleven British women, ranging from 45 to 65 years old, created an alternative calendar that sold over 88,000 copies in the U.K., and 240,000 in the U.S. Rather than raising the original goal of five thousand pounds, the women in the course of ten years raised over three and a half million pounds for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research.

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Skinner adds, the story “gives us strength to move on and appreciate friendship even more.”

From England to Toledo

One of the more complicated elements of the play is the strength and accuracy of the British accents. “With each region and county, there are various dialects,” explained Skinner. Finding the correct dialect was a little difficult.

Skinner praises his cast’s professionalism and dedication to the show. Some of the actors, who are off-stage for lengthy periods of time, also work as stage crew and help with off-stage elements of the production.

The dedication to this inspiring story is also shown through the Toledo Rep’s collaboration with the Toledo School for the Arts. Students will be making sunflowers (a common symbol throughout the play) to use as props onstage, as well as to donate to patients at a local cancer center.

Calendar Girls, although sure to get the audience laughing, will also leave viewers with “a better understanding of true friendship and the power it has in all [of] our lives, even more so in the face of adversity.”

Production contains brief nudity and some strong language
January 15-17, 21-24
8pm Fridays & Saturdays, 2:30pm Sundays
$9.75-$19.75
The Toledo Repertoire Theatre, 16 10th St.
419-243-9277 | toledorep.org

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