Pink Ladies part of the Awesome Improv Festival, Roxbury, 16 Jun 2011

Linda Calgaro and Karina Francis.
Photograph Dennis Mitchell,
Menace Photography 2010 

Yes!!
You can see the Pink Ladies doing a version of their mockumentary upstairs at the Roxbury, 182 St John's Road, Glebe, 2037, on June 16th, 2011.
It's part of an improvisation festival running every Tuesday and Thursday in June.
Come see us!!
Cast includes: Linette Voller, Cindy Tonkin, Sophie Long, Jess Mallett, Karina Francis, Lucie Booker, Linda Calgaro,

Pink Ladies are go!



Back stage at the Pink Ladies 27 September 2010.
Cloockwise from left: Linette Voller,
Lucie Booker, Karina Francis, Sophie Long, Linda Calgaro, Erin Foy,
Cindy Tonkin, Karena Thomas



So Pink Ladies first season has come to an end.

Behind every successful woman there is sometimes a huge number of people to thank.

When all was said and done, we sent $1189 to the Breast Cancer Network and had an enormous amount of fun doing it.

And we need to thank these people who donated money directly to the BCNA because of our show:

Mario Seifreid

Lisa Every

Anne Grunseit

Rod Matthews

John Bastianon
and the 105 people who paid to see the show (we don't know all of your names, but we love you!).

And the behind the scenes people who made the production work.

John Barnier and Jon Williams and the IA Committee at Impro Australia, who donated the cost of our show's insurance, and their cut of the Roxbury Late Show door.

Jason Dunn, Jim Fishwick and Glen Bell who did our lights.

Matt Pilkington who did the door for us during the Late Show.

Our mothers and mothers everywhere, who gave us so much material for our show. We're hatching a plan for a mothers' day show in 2011, so watch this space.

What the Show was about - a review from Whatsonsydney

Philippa Bird of Whatsonsydney reviewed the Pink Ladies show on October 8th.

There are still 3 more weeks in October to see our watchable show - October 15, 22, 29 2010 Upstairs at the Roxbury, 182 St John's Road, Glebe, from 10pm for 45 minutes.

Be there or be surprised!

This Friday 15th October 2010 our cast includes Chloe Paul, Lucie Booker, Jane Simmons (as the documentary maker), Jess Mallett, Louise McManus, Karina Francis and Linda Calgaro.

Photo: Taken at one of our Sydney Fringe shows: Linette Voller lights a fire in a forest. Photographer Michelle Ho

So you want to see someone specific? When they're playing

So perhaps you want to see someone special, someone specific, play in Pink Ladies.

Here is a list of who is playing when, so you can cross-reference it with your diary and do good while having a great time seeing your favourite improvisers:

Lucie Booker: 18/09, 26/09, 1/10, 15/10, 22/10, 29/10
Linda Calgaro: 16/09, 25/09, 26/09, 1/10, 15/10
Erin Foy: 16/09, 25/09, 26/09, 8/10, 22/10, 29/10
Karina Francis: 16/09, 15/10, 29/10, 25/09, 26/09, 22/10
Sophie Long: 16/09, 18/09, 25/09, 26/09, 1/10, 22/10, 29/10
Louise McManus: 16/09, 18/09, 1/10, 8/10, 15/10, 29/10
Jess Mallett: 16/09, 25/09, 8/10, 15/10, 22/10
Chloe Paul: 25/9, 8/10, 15/10, 22/10
Jane Simmons: 1/10, 8/10, 15/10
Karena Thomas: 25/09, 26/09, 1/10, 8/10, 22/10, 29/10
Cindy Tonkin: 18/09, 1/10, 29/10
Linette Voller: 16/09, 18/09, 26/09, 8/10, 22/10

Click on the Cast page to get info about each of these daring women!

photo: Erin Foy gets tough!

Linette and Jane - Size Four(teen)

Pink Ladies: Women Make it Up's first fringe shows (16th and 18th September at 8pm) are fast approaching. (Book your tix now!)

Essentially, we're making up a mockumentary. Each night will have a different improvising "producer" whose documentary you will see created before your very eyes. In rehearsal we have had themes like Breaking the Cycle of Habits, Frenemies, the inside story, and Loneliness.

Pink Ladies is long form improvisation.

Sydney is well-acquainted with short form improvisation in the form of Theatresports. Long form differs from the Theatresports  because it is more theatrical. Long form has less audience participation so you, the audience, are safe to enjoy the show. And with long form there are no time limits.

With Pink Ladies you will see improvisation which is closer to traditional theatre in its story telling and its relationships. And yet we maintain the thrill that improvisation gives to both players and the audience - the high-wire, anything might happen feeling of 6 women's minds taking you on a journey, through drama, comedy and characters devised on the fly. 

Many of the Pink Ladies were part of the cast of Improvactually a series of 9 improvised shows in March and April 2010, which followed some intensive workshops. The video clips you see on this site so far are from those shows.

Here, Linette Voller and Jane Simmons have a retail exchange:


Music by Anne Maree Wilshire.
Filmed by Susan Brown in April 2010.

Book your tickets to the Sydney Fringe Shows now - all profits to Breast Cancer Network Australia.

See us in action

Here's a little video from our April show, Improvactually.
It showcases the improvising talents of Karina Francis and Linda Calgaro, who are both in our first show on September 16th 2010.
We'd love to see you there!



Filmed by Susan Brown on 9 April 2010 live at the Roxbury Hotel, Glebe.
Music is "Loose Threads" from Light by Anne Maree Wilshire

p.s. please advise if the audio isn't good enough, and we'll subtitle for you!!

Our First show: the cast

Our first show is at the Sydney Fringe on Thursday 16th September at 8pm at St Luke's Church Hall, 11 Stanmore Road, Enmore.

The cast for the night are:

• Erin Foy
• Jess Mallett
• Karina Francis
• Linda Calgaro
• Linette Voller
• Louise McManus
• Sophie Long.

We are pumped and full of energy and ideas for this debut night!


photo: another promo image: from left to right Chloe Paul, Louise McManus, Karina Francis, Erin Foy, Karena Thomas

Yes, you can buy tickets now!!

The Pink Ladies are pleased to announce that you can now buy tickets to ALL of our shows online.

If you're the kind of person who likes to buy your tickets in advance, then go forth and ticket yourself!

Our fringe shows are on sale here.

Sydney Fringe dates are at nice accessible times like:

• Thursday 16th September at 8pm
• Saturday 18th September at 8pm
• Saturday 25th September at 5pm
• Sunday 26th September at 6:30 pm 

Buy tix for Roxbury shows (every Friday night in October) here. Roxbury shows begin at 10pm every Friday night in October.

Photo: This one of our promo photos - from left to right we have Karena Thomas (in the kerchief), Louise McManus, Erin Foy (in rollers), Karina Francis and Chloe Paul. These are just some of the 13 cast who will entertain you!!

The Bechdel Test - can we pass it?

One of the interesting conundrums we face with our show is creating scenes with all-women.

Women make it up - from left Jess Mallett, Linda Calgaro,
Jane Simmons, Karina Francis, Sophie Long.

With all women characters in our Pink Ladies show, we knew that women could play any profession (from architect to dentist to construction worker to policewoman to prime minister...), and found that when we played men (for love interests, for example), we would often refer to the male characters as "she" later in the show. 


We tried playing only women, since the gender of the character wasn't sticking. But this was avoiding what we thought were 2 problems: Firstly that our male characters were not manly enough (!) or that we were talking about previous scenes rather than creating new ones.


The problem of the "he/she" referring to characters disappears if we talk to each other about something besides the man (or about something that's IN the scene we're playing, rather than talking about a scene we've already seen!).


Which fits with the Bechdel test. Alison Bechdel laid down three criteria for movies she wanted to see:

1. It has to have at least two (named) women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man.

It's a discussion for another day whether this is a worthy way to evaluate a show or a movie. In our improvisation practice we've noticed that when the women in a scene talk about how they feel, the narrative can move forward. When they are purely advancing the narrative by giving information, then it can stagnate (or move forward, but who cares?).

So come see our Fringe shows in September or our Roxbury shows in October 2010 and judge for yourself. Do we pass the Bechdel test?   

p.s. it's actually quite surprising how few films and television shows pass the Bechdel test. You can read which ones do pass (or pass some of the criteria) at the site!

Karina Francis - getting into it

Karina Francis in action during
the Sydney Fringe 2010

Karina Francis is a physical player who'll knock your socks off with her ability to make you believe she really is driving a ten tonne truck, playing poker with the devil, or icing a cake (yes, improvisers can do pretty much anything!).

There'll be more on Karina later, but just check out the photo to remind you of who she really is (an international spy)!!

We have cast!

Today the Pink Ladies Rehearsal was dedicated to getting some photos for our posters!
We got our name from the fact that the Breast Cancer Network Australia uses pink ladies as their logo, and that's where all profits from our show will go.
And it just so happens that the Pink Ladies was the name of the bad girls' gang in Grease. So we themed it up a little. We are very fortunate that Karina Francis, one of cast, drives a golden Charger. We got in it, lounged on it, played with the doors and even burst out of it. The outputs were many, and we hope to have our poster complete and therefore begin our online promotions by the end of this week.

Next blog post I'll talk about the challenges and rewards of "rehearsing" and improvised show!


Photos on this page: At top, 3 "mean" girls: Karina Francis, Louise McManus, Chloe Paul.
At left: Chloe Paul, Louise McManus, Karina Francis, Erin Foy, Karena Thomas

Pink Ladies - Women Make it up

Rehearsals and auditions for the first season of Pink Ladies - Women make it up are underway.
Cutting the improvising community down to just women has created some interesting dynamics and we are all very excited!


So far we have reinvented a format pilfered from New York's Upright Citizens' Brigade, and updated it for our own purposes.
The idea is that we improvise a documentary for you every night. So far we have in rehearsal created A Day in the life of Glebe Markets, a documentary on Pride (and how it goeth before the inevitable fall), and Polka Dots.
While rehearsing for an improvised show is somewhat of a mystery to the non-improvising world, essentially what we aim to do is build trust with each other, create a group mind. While there are a considerable number of women who improvise, it's rare for them all to be on a stage together!
But it will happen in September and October 2010.

Photos in this posting: Linette Voller and Cindy Tonkin arm wrestling; a group scene: Karina Francis, Sophie Long, Jane Simmons and Jess Mallett; Linette Voller conducts.
Photos Sus Brown.