BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — The latest play to take the stage at the Bangor Opera House is turning some heads.
The Penobscot Theatre Company’s season-opening production of Calendar Girls' is being billed as fun, full of heart and may be a little revealing.
"It’s clearly a season opener. This is a beloved story. People love the movie. It's the perfect play for our stage. It has 13 people in it and it has 78 costumes in it—which are a lot of costumes for a play that has nudity in it,” Producing Creative Director Bari Newport said.
It's not their first show with nudity in the script though. In fact, the company’s production of WIT in 2013 concluded with a revealing scene.
But nudity is a key part of Calendar Girls—the story of a group of middle-aged women who come together and sell revealing calendars of themselves to raise money for a good cause.
"These women take off their clothes and the calendars are purchased,” Amy Roeder, who plays Ruth in the show, said. “And that doesn’t mean we all have to have perfect bodies. It doesn’t mean that we all have to have one singular shape in order to be women that are valid.”
The actors are constantly covered by various props on stage, but Roeder said it can get challenging.
Newport said the show is “family friendly” with the nudity being tasteful and having a clear purpose in the show.
“I think one of the strongest messages of the show is that women are strong, and women are resilient and women together cannot be stopped,” Roeder said.
The Penobscot Theatre Company is even selling calendars of their own featuring the actresses in the show. Like in the show, all proceeds are going to cancer care—in this case Sarah's House.
"That's why we choose the kind of work that we do. We are mission-driven. Nobody's making a profit and we're all community-driven—giving back to our community,” Newport said.
Calendar Girls runs through the end of September.