Kinky Kitten Club!
From the creative team that brought you Short Skirt Butch comes Kinky Kitten Club - an exploration of the perverse and private fantasies of a phone sex-line, starring Stephanie MacDonald. AE spoke with the play’s Halifax-based writer Lee-Anne Poole.
AE: How long have you been involved in theatre?
LAP: Since I was a kid, in one way or another.
AE: What are the biggest challenges of the gig?
LAP: As a writer, the biggest challenge is getting my piece to a place I'm happy with it.
AE: What are the rewards?
LAP: Hearing an audience laugh.
AE: How long have you been involved with The Sex Festival?
LAP: This is just The Sex Festivals second year. We are a young festival. But I have been involved since the get go.
AE: How has the festival evolved since its inception?
LAP: Too early to say, but hopefully we'll be around long enough to do some major evolving!
AE: What inspired you to produce Kinky Kitten Club?
LAP: I wrote and produced this piece. As it stands Kinky Kitten Club is a reading. The original inspiration to write about the phone sex industry came from personal life experience. I worked as a phone sex operator for over half a year. I took notes on almost all of my calls, and I found it really fascinating.
AE: Are there any unique challenges in putting this piece together?
LAP: It's always hard for me to come at a piece that I feel so personal to - as if the character is me and the story is mine. Once you get a little ways along in writing I realize that I am not THAT interesting and I need to start creating some truths for the character and not just giving her mine. It was hard to do that with this piece. I think I have. But it took a long time to be able to separate myself from it and see the whole picture.
AE: What can the audience expect to experience during the run?
LAP: I think they can expect some laughs and some insights into the industry. For better or worse, there is something very special about getting being that anonymous person at the other end of the phone. You get to know a side of a person in an extremely distant but strangely intimate way. Hearing the secrets no one else gets to.
Until Feb 26, Plutonium Playhouse, Halifax
http://www.kinkykittenclub.eventbrite.com/