BURLESQUE RAISES FUNDS FOR TELLURIDE THEATRE

28 Feb BURLESQUE RAISES FUNDS FOR TELLURIDE THEATRE

Event is two nights at the Opera House: Friday, March 29 & Saturday, March 30. Get your tickets now.

Leave your trench coat at home. But come with an open mind. (And wallet.)

Director Sasha Sullivan’s “Burlesque” is the best Telluride has to offer when Telluride is being naughty – which pretty much defines its wild and wooly past. The show is historic (same stage, but Victorian era), scandalous, sexy, daring, and very funny. New this year, “Burlesque” offers two distinct programs. (So this time around, two is better than one. Come twice.)

Friday night is all about “Cheap Thrills,” which is a variation on the theme of last year’s sold-out shows: the ladies strut their stuff in pieces they created and set to music.

Saturday night, the historic Sheridan Opera House welcomes “The House of Shimmy Shake,” a gala event set in an underground Prohibition Era saloon, featuring treats and tricks, classic burlesque, and a live auction with four very special items.

“Burlesque” also features “Boylesque” and plenty of other surprises.

All the theatrical eye candy goes to support Telluride Theatre’s 2013 season: the dearly departed comedy, “The Importance of Being Earnest”; the upcoming “Hair,” (March 12 – March 17); the spring ACTions tour, which brings live theatre to remote remote communities throughout the Southwest; summer’s Shakespeare in the Park, this year, “Twelfth Night,” “Dinner with Dionysus,” the season’s original play; and a fall Halloween extravaganza.

Who are the women who plan to push their personal envelopes – and hips – in front the whole town? They are all graduates of the burlesque class, taught by Sasha Sullivan at the Ah Ha School for the Arts, which got off the ground three years ago. The original enrollment was 12 beautiful women. That number is now 40, so Sasha is aided and abetted by co-teachers Russian Sasha and Melissa Sumpter of Durango’s Salt Fire Circus. Almost all of Sasha’s students plan to participate in “Burlesque.”

Embrace the ladies (figuratively speaking), who so wholeheartedly embrace the Full Monty and support Telluride Theatre.

To learn more, click the “play” button and listen to what Sasha Sullivan has to say.

Note: “Burlesque” is adult entertainment. No one under the age of 21 admitted.