A television, film and stage actor acclaimed across the country for her role as Shirley Valentine will perform in Port Coquitlam next month.
Nicola Cavendish will read from Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss and What I Wore at the Terry Fox Theatre on Friday Nov. 7 at 8 p.m.
Also reading with her will be Patti Allan, Jennifer Clement, Jenny Mitchell, Veena Sood and Colleen Wheeler.
A play based on the 1995 book of the same name by Ilene Beckerman, the show is a series of monologues by women and about women, centering on certain pieces of memorable clothing.
In 2010, the production won the Drama Desk Award for unique theatrical experience as well as the Broadway.com audience award for favourite new off-Broadway play.
Genie-award winner Cavendish, who recently wrapped up a run of 4000 Miles with the Arts Club at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage in Vancouver, portrays Gingy, the hard, plain-spoken narrator. She starts with her life story of three marriages, motherhood and the death of a child.
Other vignettes from the actors are interwoven such as dealing with breast cancer and an alleged assault on a college campus. "They are profound, thoughtful and true stories," Cavendish said, "and they are all very relatable."
It's not the first time the female actors have performed the play. Last year, they were at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island to benefit the Big Sisters of BC, the Revue Stage to help Dress for Success, at the Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver and in Penticton for the Oasis Church.
The idea for the play came from Jenny Mitchell, who asked Cavendish to assemble a cast. "I wanted to get the best of the best in Vancouver to make it a really, really good night out at the theatre," Cavendish recalled.
Asked if the show would appeal to men, Cavendish said she's had compliments from male audience members - just as she did when she played the desperate housewife Shirley Valentine - who said "they liked to hear how women think and feel.... They are amazed to know what's going on in a woman's mind."
She added: "Overall, people connect so fast to these short, rich stories because we do it so good."
Tickets at $20 for Love, Loss and What I Wore on Nov. 7 are available online through eventbrite.ca or at the Terry Fox Theatre (1260 Riverwood Gate, Port Coquitlam) on the night of the performance.
@jwarrenTC
