COME LEARN ABOUT NEW FILM "LADY PARTS"

When Bonnie Gross was only 13, she experienced a sharp, burning, stabbing pain in her stomach that escaped diagnosis for years, across four states by twenty different doctors. She was told she was crazy, that it was all in her head, and that she was making it up. This condition was isolating and was brought about when she rode a bicycle, tryed to use tampons, and later had sex. The problem was in her female genitalia, a body part that has been given such strange names as fufu, vajayjay, pussy, kitty, muff, fandango, hoo ha, down there, lady garden, pocketbook and happy clam. You may know it better as vagina.

After ten years of searching, and being told to use more lube and to stop concentrating on her symptoms, Bonnie found a doctor, Dr. Andrew Goldstein, who diagnosed her condition in five minutes and told her she needed surgery: a vulvar vestibulectomy. She discovered 16% of women suffer from this condition, but little is taught about it, little research is being conducted, and very few people are even talking about it. It was even more disturbing to learn the $10,000 surgery was not covered by insurance because the procedure was considered cosmetic.

All of this was happening while Bonnie was being offered her dream job and the length of her recovery would take a year to complete. Luckily for her, her parents were very supportive, had her move home to Philadelphia and were wonderfully helpful through ever step of the operation. This life changing validation occurred in 2016. By some miraculous stroke of fate, Bonnie Gross possesses skills that made it perfect for her to tell her story to the world in the form of a film, a documentary, a dramedy, a comedy. Her story is now “Lady Parts,” filmed in New York and Los Angeles, giving her a diagnosis and a platform to make a difference, to show how she was to finally find answers, to use her mother’s similar medical issue to expand the conversation for other women, to raise public awareness and create a community conversation.

With director Nancy Boyd and producer Bonnie Gross, the pair have used their personal and painful experiences, honestly and brutally truthfully, what they each went through for medical treatment, when having a sense of humor, surrounded by family and friends was critical. Come meet Paige, a brave Valentina Tammaro, on the verge of her dream career in Los Angeles and moving home to her parents, recovery a year over. The film won festivals, same resources with majestic connections like Tight Lipped, Intimate Rose, Hellocina, The Pelvic People, Isswsh and Our Body Justice Project and she will prepare for another surgery this summer.

Now thirty-two Bonnie Gross has championed to challenge her cause to research, education and treatment, to give the vagina "a voice,” and an ideal writer, filmmaker and comedian to make a major difference.

SAY HELLO, JERRY TO "JERRY'S GIRLS" COURTESY OF CENTER STAGE IN SHELTON

Composer and lyricist Jerry Herman is known for being one of the most successful composers on Broadway starting in the 1960’s. His upbeat and optimistic hit musicals, characterized by Herman for their “simple hummable show tunes” like “Hello, Dolly!,” “Mame,” and “La Cage aux Folles” won him the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors. His 1964 hit “Hello, Dolly!” was at one time the longest-running musical in Broadway history. He is the only composer to have a trio of musicals that ran for more than 1500 consecutive performances. In 1983 he wrote the first musial about a gay couple, “La Cage aux Folles.” In 2009, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.

To marvel in Jerry Herman’s parade of hits, skip on over to the Center Stage in Shelton for a musical visit with a trio of delightful singers as “Jerry Girls” until Sunday, April 19. Come hear Sandra Fernandes, Mackensie Massey and Emerson Raymond belt out thirty-six tunes that mark Herman’s genius and tribute as a composer and testify how and why Herman won so many Tonys, Grammies, Olivier, Dram Desk, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Frederick Loewe, Songwriters of Fame, Theater Hall of Fame and Kennedy Center Honors.

For example, “Hello, Dolly!” was based on Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker.” The title song by Jerry Herman became a hit for Louis Armstrong when he recorded it to publicize the play and it became his biggest hit when it climbed the charts as a “natural” in 1963. His fans made it the number one hit, so successful it pushed the Beatles off the top of the charts.Satchmo and his trumpet made it the biggest seller of his lifetime when it went gold.

Come hear some immortal tunes like "‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” “Before the Parade Passes By,” “It Only Takes a Moment” from “Hello, Dolly!” and “We Need A Little Christmas,” “If He Walked Into My Life,” “It’s Today” and “Bosom Buddies” from “Mame.” From “La Cage aux Folles.” delight in “I Am What I Am,” and “The Best of Times,” and from “Mack and Mabel “ such favorites as “Time Heals Everything,” and “Movies Were Movies.” Pianist and Music Director Jane Best performed on a revolving stage while Sandra Fernandes and Liz Muller created a colorful fashion show, Brandy Bailey and Michael “Beetle” Bailey kept the ladies on their dancing toes and Liz Muller served as a merry musical director and stage director. My personal regret was the lack of stories about the composer himself.

For tickets ($20-50), call Center Stage, 54 Grove Street, Shelton at 203-225-6079 or online at https://go-event.com/3570448-0. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Come enjoy the music of Gerald Sheldon Herman, better known as Jerry, famous for “upbeat and optimistic outlook and his simple, hummable show tunes.” And what hummable tunes they are.

"DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST" WALTZS INTO THE BUSHNELL

Come witness the first North American touring production of the beloved musical "Disney's Beauty and the Beast" in over a quarter of a century. If you are 6 or 86, you’re invited to enter the magical world of Belle, the book loving adventurous maiden, a luminous and lovely lass who would enjoy reading her precious books from dawn to dusk, as long as she doesn’t have to fend off the affections of the vain and egotistical Gaston, a tower of vanity, who imagines himself to be a desirable gift to womankind. Please open the fairy tale book that features a sweet maiden and the monster who frightens the little village where she lives. As fairy tales go, “Beauty and the Beast” is one of the enchanted best.

Meanwhile in a castle in the forest, an enchantress, for displeasing her, has cast a handsome prince into a hideous beast. Only a love that is pure and true can release him from his spell, and only before the last petal falls from a bewitched rose. Time is running out and he and his household are in danger of being cursed for all eternity. The Beast is cloaked in the persona of a challenged and unhappy soul.

Enter the fascinating musical and magical world of "Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” waltzing into the Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts for eight performances, April 7-12, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Follow the brave heroine Belle hoping to rescue her father Maurice who, after getting lost in the woods, sought shelter at the castle of the Beast and becomes his prisoner. The angry Beast, who guards his privacy, locks her father, an inventor, in a dungeon.

Belle discovers the castle and a troop of unlikely helpers in Lumiere the candelabra, Mrs. Potts the teapot, her son Chip the teacup and Cogsworth the clock. To free her father, Belle offers to stay in the castle with the Beast if he will just let her father go home. In a wild adventure, Belle and her father escape, Gaston and the villagers attack the castle, the Beast is grievously wounded and Belle learns the meaning of true love.

For tickets ($50.50 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org. Come early and attend the “Roses of Love” tribute by writing the name of a loved one on a rose. The rose will be displayed at the theater and for each rose Max Cares Foundation will donate a $1 to My Sister’s Place, a Homeless Shelter, Thrift Store and Donation Center, up to $2500.

With spectacular new sets and glamorous costumes, this timeless tale will enchant and amaze. With classic tunes like “Be Our Guest” and “Beauty and the Beast,” this new production will feature members of the original Tony Award-winning artistic team including composer Alan Menken, lyricist Tim Rice, book creator Linda Woolverton, with choreography and direction by Oliver Award nominee Matt West, scenic designer Stanley A. Meyer, costume designer Ann Hould-Ward and lighting designer Natasha Katz.

Discover for yourself how the magic spell is broken, how the enchanted objects become human again and how “happily ever after” is the way all fairy tales are supposed to end.

WELCOME TO IVORYTON'S CHARMING TRIBUTE TO "I'M CONNECTICUT"

Connecticut is like Mississippi in being a challenge to spell correctly. Its uniqueness may begin and end there. Luckily it’s bigger than Rhode Island and can boast great basketball teams from the University of Connecticut for both men and women teams. Go Huskies!

But as exciting, romantic or sexy states go, Connecticut wouldn’t rank at the top of the continental 48 and especially not if you add in Alaska and Hawaii. Connecticut is known as the Insurance Capitol of the World, thanks to Hartford, and also the Land of Steady Habits, The Constitution State and The Nutmeg State. Connecticut doesn’t enjoy the glamour of its neighbor to the south and west, New York, or the mystic of its northern bordering Massachusetts with its rich political history.

Yet do not give up hope. Connecticut born playwright Mike Reiss is coming to your rescue with a prideful play, a special comedy, “I’m Connecticut,” enjoying its new light of day at the Ivoryton Playhouse until Sunday, April 19 in Ivoryton.

“I’m Connecticut” tells the charming tale of a nice guy named Marc, played with spirit and sincerity by Quinn Corcoran, who while born in Simsbury, has transplanted himself to the Big Apple. His lack of success with women he blames on geography: he comes from a boring and beige state.

With clever dialogue and amazing visual effects by John Horzen on a colorful set by Starlet Jacobs, we follow Marc’s quest for love, much as we would Don Quixote’s search for the Impossible Dream. After an unsuccessful, substitute disastrous, speed dating event, Marc meets Diane (Deanna Ott), a Georgia peach who has come north for adventure.

A secondary love story blooms when Diane’s mom Polly, a delightful Bonnie Black, meets Marc’s grandfather, a spry R. Bruce Connelly. The speed dating manager (Kenneth Robert Marlo) and Marc’s work buddy Kyle (Michael Barra) run interference in this lively game of love mating directed by Artistic Director Jacqueline Hubbard. Others in the cast include Nathan Szymanski, Alexis Trice and Stephanie Wasser andJohn C. Baker as Mark Twain and Canada.

Mike Reiss, the Aetna 2011 Writing Fellow at UCONN, wrote this comedy only a few years ago. He is no stranger to the world of humor, having written scripts for “The Simpsons” for more than twenty years, co-wrote “The Simpsons Movie,” “Horton Hears a Who!,” “ Ice Age,” and “Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” the screenplay for “My Life in Ruins,” fourteen children’s books, as well as writing for “It’s Gerry Shandling’s Show,” “ALF” and “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

A native of Connecticut, Reiss is uniquely suited to pen a romantic tale about our state and infuse it, just like he does his hero Marc, with pride, enthusiasm and patriotic spirit. Unfortunately he also makes Marc a liar, a trait that derails him from his true path to passion.

For tickets ($60 adults, $55 seniors, $25 students, and discounts on Thursday), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at Ivorytonplayhouse.org. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m., Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Root for your home team, in this case Marc and the entire Nutmeg state, as we cheer him on to find boasting rights and true love, all in seventy-five fun-filled minutes.

THE PALACE IN WATERBURY INVITES YOU TO LISTEN TO "STEREOPHONIC"

Can you ever imagine living life on the cusp? The cusp is where you balance precariously on the edge, of either victory and defeat, success or failure, triumph or disaster? It is not a comfortable place to be, but oh, how exciting and nerve wracking. To experience the agony and the ecstasy of this dangerously exciting predicament, settle back with a young up and coming band on the verge of superstardom or utter oblivion in “Stereophonic” coming to Waterbury’s Palace Theater for one night, Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Put yourself in a music studio. It’s 1976. Imagine you are a member of a rock and roll band recording your second album and anything and everything is ecstastically possible. Will you soar to greatness? Will you crash and burn, miss the spotlight and fade into obscurity to never be heard from again?

For three hours and ten minutes your fate and future hang in the balance. Will creativity consume you and lead you heavenward or will it abandon you and force you to desert all your hopes and dreams? Written by David Adjmi with original music by Will Butler of Arcade Fire, “Stereophonic” follows a ficticious 1970’s band recording a rock and roll album in Sausalito, California. Praised for its energy and realistic depiction of the creative process, with all its messy and emotional aspects, the play exposes the interpersonal conflicts, and the ambitions and anxieties of the band members, as they seal their own fate. What is at stake is highlighted, balanced against the pressure of success, the sexual tensions and the detrimental effects of drug abuse, like cocaine and alcohol. This, the most Tony-nominated play of all time, is directed by Daniel Aukin.

For tickets($49-89), call the Palace Theater, 100 East Main Street, Waterbury at 203-346-2000 or online at palacetheaterct.org.

Engage yourself emotionally and intimately with an exciting new musical group that could easily reach stardom or just as easily explode into nothingness, trapped as it is in a creative process of its own making.

THE BUSHNELL INVITES YOU TO DON SOME "KINKY BOOTS"

Family businesses rarely survive to the second generation, especially when the son does not want what his father created. Just ask Charlie Price who inherited his dad’s shoe factory as it was three shoelaces away from bankruptcy. Luckily for the audience “Kinky Boots”gets a first rate resurrection, thanks to a powerhouse book by Harvey Fierstein and sensational music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and the great National Touring Cast bringing it to the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts until Sunday, March 22.

Think quirky, exotic, bizarre, slightly deviant, provocative and definitely unconventional. Hold on to your shoe horns because “Kinky Boots” is strutting into town with all its high heeled splendor and The Bushnell in Hartford will be decked out in red sequined glamor and open for business, kinky business that is.

With on fire direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell, this winner of 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical is based on the motion picture of the same name written by Geoff Deane and Tom Firth. Come meet Charlie who is less than thrilled by the inheritance he receives when his father dies: a shoe factory on the verge of bankruptcy. He had thought he was successful running off to London for a new career with his girlfriend Nicola (Emma Dean) when he is pulled back to Northampton and Price and Son.

As conscientious Noah Verman’s Charlie walks on wobbly feet trying to rescue the family business, he quickly realizes that the old standby oxfords and loafers are now passe. Gentlemen’s shoes are the footwear of the past and Charlie needs an infusion of new life if he is to succeed. Based on a true story, “Kinky Boots” follows the miraculous transformation that happens when Charlie meets a truly creative one-of-a-kind Omari Collins ‘Scarlett D. Von’Du” Lola. Lola, a cross dressing performer of spectacular height and talents, can’t find a pair of sturdy and stylish stilettos to dance in for her/his act.

Lola’s problems are solved when the two conceive of a unique plan: retool Price & Sons to make a line of high heels for the mature male performer parading in boas, bustiers and beads. Tucked into every tall and tapered red patent leather boot is a tale of friendship, of stamping down hard on stereotypes and giving a firm kick to prejudices. This eye-opening, pop-up celebration of life, through extraordinary music and dance, is uplifting and super energized and packed with the spirit of joy. Put on your mile thigh high boots and practice moving to the magnetizing beat.

For tickets ($36-132), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Watch how Charlie, with a lot of help from his new best bud Lola, reinvents his business and sends it into the stratosphere of shoe heaven, with an angel of a girlfriend Sophia Gunther’s Lauren in the process.

A GRAND IRISH MUSICAL AT MUSIC THEATRE OF CT UNTIL MARCH 22

Without packing a suitcase or buying a ticket to the Emerald Isle, you can bring Ireland right to your doorstep. That magical land of leprechauns and pots of gold can all be yours without kissing the Blarney Stone even once. Forget counting sheep or hunting for a four leaf clover. After all isn’t this the best time of year to put an O’ in front of your name and pretend to hail from that glorious greenery?

What better time than St. Patrick’s Day to enjoy a hearty corned beef and cabbage dinner, a riotous parade of frivolity all dressed in green and a merry musical about the Emerald Isle. Thankfully Music Theatre of Connecticut is providing a charming version of Frank McCourt’s love letter to his homeland in “The Irish and How They Got That Way” until Sunday, March 22 for your enjoyment and edification.

Author and playwright Frank McCourt has woven the history, traditions and music of his people through letters, paintings, journals, folk songs and memories to create a charming and ironic portrait of 150 years of the Irish struggle to succeed in America. Come enjoy songs like “Danny Boy,” "Finnegan’s Wake, “Galway Bay,” “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye,” “Mother Machree," “No Irish Need Apply,” “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder” and “Give My Regards To Broadway” to mention a few.

With laughter and emotion and sentiment, three men and two women, Zachary Anderson, Hillary Ekwall, Jeff Raab, Joseph Torello and Erin Margaret Williams take you on a journey thanks to Frank McCourt’s memories in both story and songs showing both his wit and his pride. Called "a fiting tribute to everything Irish,” you will note the blarney, the magic of leprechauns, the toll of the Potato Famine, the pride of everyone from James Cagney and George M. Cohan to John F. Kennedy, even if you can’t taste the flavor of a pint of Guinness.

The Irish migrant story is captured with reverence revealing the injustices suffered both in the homeland and in their adopted country, all with honesty and humor, knowing in your heart that being Irish is not an easy fate. Each of the actors is skilled at a slew of instruments from guitars to tambourines, violins to piano, spoons to washboards, complete with Irish jigs, in great thanks to the Irish director Kevin Connors.

For tickets ($ 50-60), with a special Guinness and such available at the bar, call MTC, 509 Westport Avenue, Route 1, Norwalk at 203-454-3883 or online at admin@musictheatreofct.com.

Performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Even if your name isn’t Danny, Paddy,Timothy or Shawn, everyone is Irish, thanks to Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Angela’s Ashes” Frank McCourt and the “honey lips” of these enthusiastic and energetic performers who wish a Top o’ the Morning to you.