The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Friends share, quip and sing
What do I know about female-targeted stage shows? Not too much, except they’re popular for their comedy, music and, you know, sharing.
Shows such as the “Late Night Catechism” series and “Panties in a Twist” are produced by New Yorkbased Entertainment Events Inc., which will supply another tune-based one-nighter to the Shubert in New Haven Saturday, Dec. 8, in “Twas a Girls Night Before Christmas: The Musical.”
It’s a sequel to “Girls Night: The Musical,” which played the Shubert in February. That one covered some popular hit songs of the 1980s and ’90s as the five friends visited their past, celebrated their present and looked to the future on a wild and funny night out. One reviewer described it as “Desperate Housewives meets Mamma Mia.”
Producer/creator Tim Flaherty, who is the president and CEO of Entertainment Events, conceived the show and pitched it to the author of the original “Girls Night,” Louise Roche.
“I had produced other shows and I had noticed that in the female genre, like ‘Menopause: The Musical”... and “Girls Night,” there was a time of year, particularly the fourth quarter, when we had a real dip in bookings,” Flaherty said in a phone chat from his car where he was driving with his wife and theater colleague Sonya. “And it was primarily because the audience for these kinds of shows are predominately women and women are predominately the ones carrying the burden of the holidays — making sure all the work gets done and all the gifts get purchased and wrapped, meals and all the other stuff.”
Flaherty said Roche already had a script for “Girls Night, Too,” but given the desire for a holiday show, Flaherty and company came up with the title “Twas a Girls Night Before Christmas: The Musical” that described girlfriends coming together before the holidays “and they commiserate about all the work they have to do during the holidays, in-laws, decorations, gift-giving, ungrateful kids. We took a look at the sequel script and adapted it (to be) more about the holidays. We kept the overall arc of the sequel; there is a story.”
EEI is a one-stop shop of sales, production, casting, creative and technical. Since 1999 EEI has produced, for example, “Maybe Baby, It’s You,” “The Yiddish Are Coming, The Yiddish Are Coming!,” “Shout! The Mod Musical,” “Tony N Tina’s Wedding,” “Cuff Me: The Fifty Shades of Grey Musical Parody,” “Late Nite Catechism” and “Sister’s Easter Catechism: Will My Bunny Go To Heaven?”
Flaherty said women account for 80 percent of theater ticket sales decisions, and these shows appeal to that demo of women 45-75. So a telling title helps to instantly sell the concept.
The songs are done with a recorded background track. And there’s just a two-person technical crew and locally sourced sets.
“We have five actresses; they can all sing their tails off. They have great voices where they do five-part harmonies,” Flaherty said of this show’s 12 songs.
Women relate to these shows, and sometimes a song does wonders.
“One of songs ... is the big hit ‘I Will Survive,’ ” Flaherty said. “We’ve noticed for a number of years that a lot of times, women will get particularly caught up in that song... getting emotional. We started to realize they were cancer survivors, and that song takes on a whole different meaning. So as a result, we do a reprise at the end where we sing that song again and we bring up from the audience any women who are dealing or have dealt with cancer and are surviving. And it’s really quite poignant.”