"My Ship Has Sailed," Laura Ainsworth's musical lampoon of our society's obsession with youth and beauty, appears March 9 on the Main Stage of WaterTower Theatre's "Out Of The Loop" Festival in Addison, Texas, one of the most prestigious independent theater festivals in the Southwest. The show combines great music (from Madonna to Puccini) with wickedly funny lyrics about extreme makeovers, the Perricone anti-wrinkle diet, and all the other things we do to try to fight "the last big cultually-acceptable bias: looking over 30." It also promotes an empowering message to forget your age and follow your dreams at any time of life.
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) February 24, 2005 -- In her live show, "My Ship Has Sailed: How to be a Late-Bloomer in a World Obsessed with Extreme Youth," singer/comic Laura Ainsworth preaches that "life doesn't happen on a timetable," and people should pursue their dreams at any age. But even she admits she is amazed at how quickly so many of her long-delayed dreams are coming true.
"In the fall of 2003, I started doing this show on a zero budget in a tiny club where there were sometimes about 15 people in the audience," Ms Ainsworth recalls.
Fast-forward 18 months, and Ainsworth is now a headliner at the hot new club D'jango On The Parkway, star of a Dallas Comcast Cable special, a blogger lampooning ageism at www.lauraainsworth.com, and next, her "Ship" sails into WaterTower Theatre of Addison's "Out-Of-The-Loop" Festival, one of the most prestigious and competitive independent theater showcases in the Southwest. She and pianist/partner Brian Piper were selected to appear March 9th on the Main Stage, the festival's largest venue.
"I love cabarets and nightclubs," Ms Ainsworth said. "But with my background in musicals, it's always been my dream to do this show in theaters. I'll be able to add some new visual elements, and I think theater audiences will really appreciate the message."
That message, that "age is the last big, culturally-acceptable bias," is conveyed through comedy monologues and wickedly funny parodies of songs ranging from Gershwin to Madonna, whose hit "Frozen" is warped into a deadpan hymn to the unintended effects of too much Botox.
Ms. Ainsworth honed her song parody chops in radio - she is the co-creator of The Comedy Wire, a syndicated humor service used by morning shows worldwide - and her versatile voice can replicate numerous styles, from torch songs to grand opera. She explains, If Julie Andrews and ‘Weird Al Yankovic had a child, it would be me."
It's not unusual to see tables of up to 20 girlfriends who have all come together to lift appletinis in appreciation of her tuneful skewering of our society's youth obsession, from jailbait fashion models to plastic surgery as TV entertainment. But Ms. Ainsworth insists her show is for men, too, with material about the societal changes that are fueling a big rise in the number of men turning to cosmetic surgeons, hair dyes and anti-aging creams.
Having worked as a model, corporate writer, singer, actress and comedian, Ms. Ainsworth jokes that she's lucky enough to have personally researched ageism in a multitude of fields. This was particularly evident when she returned to the stage after several years of curtailed performances due to a serious inner ear disorder that was finally cured by a specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Discovering that she was no longer considered for some of her favorite roles, she decided to take matters into her own hands and create a show for everyone who is past – or who anticipates being past - the "ingénue" stage of life.
Today, she is ageless in more ways than one. A slender, sexy redhead with a youthful complexion she credits to the Perricone Diet (she even sings a mock Puccini aria about the ordeal of eating salmon twice a day, entitled "O Worship Dr. Perricone"), Ms. Ainsworth doesnt tell her age. She advises, "If someone asks how old you are, simply say, 'I forget...How much do you weigh?'" While she embraces other anti-ageism crusaders who say people should shout their age to the world, she says that as long as our society is so "pathologically age-obsessed," telling her age makes it easier for people to put her into a box, "and I prefer to do my thinking out-of-the-box."
Ms. Ainsworth sometimes frustrates critics who want her to make a strident attack on the anti-aging industry. But she says attitudes about age are far too complicated to declare a simple, "one-size-fits-all" solution, and that it is up to each individual to decide how much energy to devote to fighting the pressure to look younger and how much to spend accommodating it. She prefers using laughter as a way to point out the mixed messages that assault us daily, to make audiences think about the intense demands we put on ourselves to keep young and beautiful at all costs, and to be comfortable with whatever personal choices we make in dealing with it all. Or as she says in "My Ship Has Sailed," "Whatever ship you're on now, you're still the one steering it."
"Remember," she adds, "if you open your medicine cabinet and 100 different anti-aging products fall into your sink, your problem isn't wrinkles. It's paranoia."
"My Ship Has Sailed" plays Wed. March 9 at 7:30 p.m. at WaterTower Theater's "Out-Of-The-Loop" Festival at 15650 Addison Rd., Addison, TX 75001. For reservations or festival passes, phone 972-450-6232. For information, visit http://www.lauraainsworth.com.
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