ON STAGE
Fresh From the Sexy Factory - and Other Epiphanies
When: Saturday and Sunday, 7 p.m., 8: 45 p.m., and 10: 15 p.m.
Where: Intrepid Theatre
Tickets: $15 per show or $35 for all three.
With a mix of comedy, spontaneity and some testosteroneinjected burlesque, Victoria is about to get a whole lot steamier.
Fresh from the Sexy Factory is a three-part festival of new works, organized by local burlesque babe Rosie Bitts and her husband Bruce Blake.
"It's a theatre festival that I dreamt up with my husband to fill a niche in Victoria that is really sexy, cutting-edge and new theatre," said Bitts.
"If all goes well this year, we'll definitely bring it back again next year."
Among this weekend's offerings is the debut of an all-male "boylesque" troupe.
"This one's brand spanking new. It's the first time in the history of Victoria that we get a full boylesque show," Bitts said. "So everything that people in Victoria have come to know and love in a good burlesque show is going to happen - but this time with men."
Johnny Bottomsworth leads the Beefcake Boylesque, and Bitts emcees in the role of den mother, she said. Some members are first-timers at the art of the tease, while others are more experienced dancers.
"I think it kind of evens the playing field in a sense that the men are trying to epitomize the same thing as the women - create a fun and sexy evening, have a creative output, but also for the audience to enjoy them in this fun, sexy way," she said. "It's going to be an evening that's good for both sexes."
But first, the show kicks off at 7 p.m. with a new hit on the Fringe circuit that missed Victoria. 'Til Death Do We Part: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, written and directed by Ryan Gladstone, debuted this summer and was named a Pick of the Fringe at the Vancouver festival this month.
The one-woman play stars Tara Travis as each of the monarch's scorned wives - from the scheming and betrayed to the ugly and "the one in love with someone else."
"She's gone through and brought out their different characteristics and how they would relate to one another," Bitts said. "What I've been hearing from people is they just laugh and laugh and laugh."
Cameryn Moore, well known to Victorians for her sex-positive Fringe shows, including Phone Whore and Slut (R)evolution, performs the third show. Power/Play brings audience interaction to a new level with a choose-your-own adventure format. It's billed as a "lyrical, motivational and intensely intimate storytelling journey into sex itself."
"It's sexy, it's very edgy, so may not be for the faint of heart," Bitts said.
"Cameryn does drama, but I hate to just call it drama because there's a lot of poignant, comedic elements to what she does. ... She's brilliant. I love, love, love what she does."
Though the three acts are varied, Bitts says they share a common boundary-pushing factor as well as being new to Victoria.
"That was important to me - to bring in things that you don't get to see every day here," she said.
