Forget The Rules With These Not-So-Good Girls

A A A Comments By Drew Bixby Thursday, Jan 21 2010

Millions of people have read The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right — the 1995 bestseller that encourages women to “rarely return his calls” and “wear sheer black pantyhose and hike up your skirt” — and every one of them has an opinion. Some who choose to express this opinion do so via Amazon reviews (nearly 600 to date), personal blogs and fan/hate mail.

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Joan Bruemmer, director of Good Girls Don’t, But I Do, a quasi-musical now playing at the Packing House Center for the Arts, has expressed hers in song and dance. Good Girls, which debuted at the 2009 Boulder International Fringe Festival and sold out five of seven performances, is a comedic take on the advice from The Rules, loosely set up around “Dear Diary” moments. For example: “Dear Diary: I followed all the Rules; I didn’t talk to a man first. Why am I so lonely?” During another scene, the all-female cast dances around with mops to the Beastie Boys’ “Girls.”

“The book is just a bunch of crap. I was pretty irritated by it. It’s asking men and women to lie about who they are in order to pursue this idea of a perfect union,” Bruemmer vents. As for the show, she calls it “a fun mash-up of modern music and ’50s sensibilities, which I think is really appealing.”

The very limited Denver run of Good Girls opens today at 8 p.m. and plays four nights through January 30 at the Packing House, 835 East 50th Avenue. Tickets are $12 to $14 in advance and can be purchased at www.controlgroupproductions.org.
Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. Starts: Jan. 22. Continues through Feb. 6, 2010

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