Girls Night coming to Club Soda – it’s a party!

The story behind Girls Night is an inspiration to any writer still waiting for their big break. One night, Louise Roche, a mother of three children under five, went out with a group of friends to see a Shane Richie musical. She looked around the theatre, saw that the audience was mostly women and thought “I could do this…I could write a show that lots of women will enjoy watching.”

So she did. She went home and wrote her first play, Girls Night, a musical comedy about a group of friends who relive the past on a wild night out at a karaoke club!

She put it on with some of her friends at the local community theatre. Five old friends from school did the acting. She got a woman that she met at her daughter’s playgroup to design the posters and the set. Her mom did the costumes and she dressed the auditorium up like a nightclub herself. It sold out its entire run and gained legendary status in the area. One audience member claimed that it made her laugh so hard that her Tampax fell out!

Bolstered by this success, she hired the much bigger Milton Keynes Theatre to mount a one-off spectacular performance of Girls Night. Not one to do things by halves, the heroic housewife put her money where her mouth was and ploughed her life savings of £10,000 into the show. Every one of the fourteen hundred seats in the building sold and she made back just over £10,000.

Since then, Girls Night has gone from success to success. It has been two phenomenally successful national tours since 2003, achieving an average capacity of 70% and receiving rave reviews from audience members and critics alike.

I recently spoke with Sonya Carter, producer of the show that is coming to Club Soda on October 22. “The show takes place in an imaginary Karaoke bar, where the friends have gathered for a girls’ night out. They remember one of their friends who has passed on, and the Angel is the narrator of the show – giving the audience the inside scoop on the other characters.”

“Every one of the 14 songs is a women’s anthem – from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I Will Survive, Lady Marmalade, It’s Raining Men, and I Feel Like a Woman. It’s a feel-good night of fun. One of the strengths of the show is that most women in the audience can relate to at least one of the charters on stage.”

“There is an ‘issue’ that has to resolved, and that provides an undercurrent for the show.”

Concluding our conversation, Sonya states; “Tell your readers that the show is a party! Forget about the kids, the laundry – grab a Martini and have fun!”

Girls Night is on Thursday, October 22 at Club Soda. Showtime is at 6:30 pm. Tickets: $49.50 (taxes included / service charge extra). Now on sale at Club Soda (1225 boul. St-Laurent), by telephone at (514) 286-1010 and online at www.clubsoda.ca Enjoy ladies!