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Title is not exactly accurate as the play is not just about Portland strip clubs. However, since we are known for them, we'll just say it is about Portland ones until it tours another city. I have not seen this yet, but our friend Rocket is in it and besides the fact that she is rad, it looks pretty interesting.

Related from Pipeline: Worth Watching: Rocket, Belle of the Monkey Bars

From Press Release:
CoHo Productions is thrilled to announce the world premiere of Live Girls by  west-coast playwright Natalie Rose.

Coho Productions' Live Girls
Live Girls
July 8 — August 7,  2010
by Natalie Rose
Tickets: $10 Students, Educators, and 60+; $18 for adults (buy here)

http://www.cohoproductions.org/

Strip clubs are mysterious and complex places. These buildings are often lacking in an obvious entrance and non-descript, save for an eerie energy and a sign stating what lies within. They serve as a vortex in which people party, get wasted, and do things far out of their usual habits. Lonely people seek them out to feel wanted.

Dancing at a strip club is a step many women take which crosses them swiftly over a threshold from safety and social acceptance into a very different, intense, and changing world. More often than not, this world is filled and fueled by excitement, adrenaline, drugs, sex, money and all the trappings – a sort of gateway drug into the sex industry.  Can it be simultaneously alluring and upsetting, both empowering and objectifying? The masses love or hate them — the establishments, the patrons, and the performers. We are intrigued as an audience to peek into the fantasy illusion of this world, an illusion to anyone who does not work within them. Strip clubs themselves are a theater: the characters have defined costumes, names and music; customers are the audience; and everyone wants to know what's behind the curtain.

CoHo Productions gives you Live Girls by Natalie Rose, directed by Toni McDowell-Laney. The entire show takes place in the locker room, not the dressing room, of a small town strip club set in the Southwest. Rose gives the audience a unique opportunity to be a fly on the wall of a typically very secret room, a room that is at once sexy and tumultuous — a whirlwind of a place.  In CoHo's intimate theater, audiences will feel the closeness of the flashing colors; the scent of perfume and sweat; the tantalizing, hysterical and scary sights that heighten the potency of this adventure. The cast is seven women and one man and it is very much an ensemble piece.  Each character experiences wide arcs of emotion — episodes flare and people change.  This piece is funny, dark, naughty and interesting.

In Live Girls we follow Juli as she gets a job as a cocktail waitress at the strip club, looking to fulfill her financial needs. She enters a world surrounded by several of life's greatest temptations: drugs, sex and money. The charismatic dancers at the club provide support, encouragement and philosophies of individual strength. How long will it be before she becomes a dancer herself? And will she ever be able to leave?

This piece is unique and important. This story is timely and timeless.  In her heart Natalie holds these women close and calls them ‘The Lost Women'. They inspire her, as she's been in that world, and she can recognize them everywhere. In Live Girls, through Juli, Rose asks the question: "What is the path or series of choices that transform a girl's bright face and eyes, filled with dreams and idealism, into an ethereal figure with glazed eyes of drugs and pain that brim with depth of sorrow too intense to bear?"

This is a world Natalie personally encountered, and found that even the most idealistic spirit can break from the environment or the addictions found there. Some women are helped by their career as a dancer — she was; it served a purpose for a time. There are also a lot of women who are lost forever into a world far different from what they want for themselves.

There are other plays themed with the strip club world; none take place fully and solely in the locker room. This is unique and important because the locker room is a place of naked vulnerability and bright lights of truth.  This piece does not serve to judge stripping as good or bad, but begins a dialogue. There are many difficult events that occur in this world, but there are also love, humor, choices leading to the empowerment of people in difficult situations. The truths of the experiences are layered and not so easy to judge at face value, as is often done with strippers and strip clubs.  This world deserves acknowledgment and discussion.

Tickets for performances can be purchased at HulaHub.com or by calling (503) 205-0715. Tickets can also be purchased at the door. A season flex-pass allows passholders to choose 5 shows in CoHo's World Premiere Summer that they most want to see for just $50.

Co-producer Biographies:
Natalie Rose, Playwright/ Co-producer

Natalie Rose is an impassioned and committed artist to the core.  She has worked in theatre in nearly every capacity.  From the very beginning of her life she was a performer.  At fourteen she was a professional opera singer.  She continued with studies in theatre and has worked with theatres in New Mexico, California and Portland in varied capacities from set design and construction to acting, ticket sales, light design, house management and more, she understands it inside out.  She's the sole producer of the staged reading of "Live Girls" at Crossroads theatre in 2008.  She was a writing contributor to the Odyssey Theatre's first newsletter with a playwright interview.  She is the founder of a woman's theatre group in California.  Her one-act "Dr. Krauss & Dr. Clauss: Relationship Advisors" premiered at First Look Theatre Festival in California in 2007.  Her personal goal is to affect the role of woman in society by writing substantial works to be performed and enjoyed at all levels, works that intrigue and inspire audience and performers, works that allow actors to be people and create roles for diverse casting.  Natalie is exceptionally personable and although she currently lives in California, she will be happy to travel into Portland for this show and assist in post-show discussions as desired.  She has dedicated audience in Portland and audience that will travel to enjoy her work.  Due to her life experience as a dancer she offers essential insight into the world of stripping and serves as a fabulous tool as consultant for "Live Girls".

Toni (Tozzi) McDowell-Laney, Director/ Co-producer

Tozzi has been involved in theatre since she was thirteen.  She spent the first six years of her experience acting in Oklahoma, in shows such as "The Boys Next Door," "All My Sons," and "Juvie."  During these years she also learned scenic construction and technical theatre.  She earned her B.A. in theatre from Oklahoma Baptist University where she concentrated largely on Directing and Stage Management.  Her first directing experience was "'Night, Mother," and along the way she directed a ten-minute play, the comedy "Ferris Wheel," and Harold Pinter's one-act "Ashes to Ashes."  As an upper classman while studying theatrical theory and history, she assisted professors in the acting classes offered.  Her senior year she earned the Best Student Director award for her direction on "Keely and Du".  Tozzi was hired by Theatreworks, Colorado Springs in 2003 as an assistant Stage Manager.  There she both assistant stage managed and stage managed shows under a wide variety of directors and styles.  In February of 2006 Tozzi directed the sold out "Vagina Monologues" at Theatreworks, Colorado Springs.

Tozzi grew into her role as a director creating theatre out of any space available from the back of a truck to a two-hundred seat fully-packed house.  More than six years of working as a stage manager and props designer has given her an appreciation for quality work and professionalism.

Coho Productions

CoHo has pioneered an unusual collaborative model it calls co-production. CoHo invites local theater artists to propose plays for production.  CoHo's co-producer is principally responsible for the artistic and technical aspects of the production; CoHo equips the venue, raises funds, and markets and promotes the show.  This co-production model motivates theater artists to excel because they are treated as partners, not hired hands, and encourages creativity by challenging artists to propose and produce their own projects.