A big burlesque show that was scheduled to happen as a fundriaser for the McMillan Arts Centre this Saturday is moving locations to the Coombs Fairgrounds.
Anna Mayrhofer is a founding member of the Damsels in DisDress and said her entertainment group had to make other arrangements after the entire board resigned at the arts centre a few weeks back.
“The day posters were set to come out the coup happened,” she said. “We had no one to talk to for three weeks and no one contacted us, and we had to find a new home.”
Damsels in DisDress is made up of four local entertainers who all began performing burlesque with the annual vaudeville and burlesque show Night at the Palace in Errington about five or six years ago.
Instead of raising funds for the MAC, the show will now raise funds for the Damsels to attend the Burlesque Hall of Fame weekend in Las Vegas next June, where the girls will take seminars and classes and mingle with the legends of burlesque, Mayrhofer said.
Dave Klinger, elected on Monday as the new interim Secretary at the MAC said it’s unfortunate the show was cancelled.
“A few things have happened but we can’t do anything about that now,” he said. “The new board is very exciting and the enthusiasm is wonderful and we’re concentrating on the future.”
The Damsels in DisDress has performed in a number of other burlesque shows around the island and this will be the first one the group is hosting. It will feature 20 acts using actors from around the Island.
“It’s probably one of biggest mid-Island burlesque shows that has gone on thus far,” Mayrhofer said.
Where it differs from the Night at the Palace show is that it’s 100 per cent burlesque, instead of the vaudeville aspect that has skits and short plays involved, she explained.
“Here you’ll see burlesque performances so more removals and tassle twirls and that kind of thing,” she said.
The adult-only show will take place at the Arrowsmith Hall located at the Coombs Fairgrounds this Saturday, November 30. There will be concessions, vendors and door prizes.
Tickets are $30 available from Shades of Green, Wilde and Sparrow, and Sexessories, all in Parksville. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the door. The doors open at 6:30 and the show starts at 7:30 p.m.
