WaterTower Theatre adds Showgirls 2.0 to Out of the Loop festival

by PegNews wire

WaterTower Theatre is pleased to announce the addition of Showgirls 2.0 with David Schmader to the 2009 Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. A 10-day celebration of theatre, dance, music and art, the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival features performances by arts organizations from the local area and region. The Festival will run March 5 – 15, 2009 at the Addison Theatre Centre.

Upon its 1995 release, Paul Verhoeven’s glitzy stripper drama Showgirls earned some of the most extravagantly awful reviews in cinema history. “A film of thunderous oafishness," wrote Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, with critics around the globe unanimously damning Showgirls as a failure doomed to die in infamy.

Only it didn’t. Since its original release, Showgirls has grown into a full-fledged cult phenomenon, thanks in no small part to the cinematic missionary work undertaken by David Schmader, the critically acclaimed writer and performer who hosted his first annotated screenings of the film at Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum in 1999. Part art-appreciation lecture, part sit-down comedy routine, all against the backdrop of Verhoeven’s peerlessly offensive, flesh-drenched disaster, Showgirls with David Schmader was an instant hit, packing theaters in Seattle and touring to film festivals across the country, with Schmader reintroducing Verhoeven’s hideous folly to a generation of filmgoers as the most inadvertent, surreally hilarious comedy in film history.

David Schmader also appears in the 2009 Festival performing Straight, his hilarious and subversive solo play about the world of conversion therapy, where gays and lesbians are reputedly "cured" of their homosexuality and made "straight."

Showgirls 2.0 with David Schmader will play March 6 and March 7 at 10:00 p.m. on the Festival Main Stage at Addison Theatre Centre. Tickets are $10 each and will go on sale February 17 at noon by calling the WTT Box Office at 972-450-6232 or online. Festival Passes, which include one admission to each festival event, are currently available for $60 by calling 972-450-6232. Click here for a complete festival schedule.

Posted by Shawn