Rehearsals roaring along for raunchy comedy | Taranaki News | Local News in Taranaki

REHEARSALS are roaring along for Stratford on Stages’s latest production StiFF, which opens in October at the Kings Theatre.
Director Lois Kyle is thrilled with the progress made by her stellar cast of Trudie Ashford (Angel Delight), Fi Szpetnar-Perez (Roxanne Paine), Nicola Lambkin (Sherry), Morris West (Delilah), Alex Ballantyne (Mr Swipe), Ngaire Rawlinson (Mrs Beaton), David Rohe (The Lawyer) and Scott Hughes (The Judge).
Lois says STiFF is a raunchy, adult comedy that will have you crying with laughter.
“Rehearsals are a laugh a minute and the actors are growing into their characters before my eyes.”
New Zealand playwright April Phillips is well known throughout the country, with most amateur companies having produced sell-out seasons of her play STiFF.  The successful comedy has revitalised theatre in some provinces where live theatre has struggled to attract audiences.
In a NZ Herald Interview, April said ‘there’s lots of cheekiness, innuendo and double entendres. It’s rude but it’s not crude. It’s absolutely silly, there’s nothing deep and meaningful about it, unlike some of the other stuff I’ve written….STiFF is just pure silly entertainment and my aim was just to make people laugh.’
The fast-paced situation comedy played to packed houses at The Questors Theatre in Ealing, West London, the largest community theatre in Europe and has enjoyed similar success in Brisbane.
Angel Delight and her team of ‘girls’ (including a transvestite named Delilah who has a cleaning fetish) run an undercover massage parlour in a funeral home, keeping up appearances despite the prying of a disgruntled former employee who feels he should have inherited the business.
Fishnet stockings, death by misadventure and unorthodox embalming techniques feature in this clever quick-fire comedySTiFF’s season will run at the TET King’s Theatre from October 14 to 23.
Earlybird tickets at $20 each will be available from the Stratford Information Centre throughout September. Thereafter they will be $25.