Not Heard From Lately: Elderly Strippers

By Julienne Bilker in Add category on Feb 26, 2009 5:30PM

This Tuesday, try an alternative to melting into the couch while flipping between American Idol and The Biggest Loser and check out the one-night-only, one-woman performance of Last Days of Desmond ‘Nani’ Reese: A Stripper’s History of the World at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theatre.

Probably best known for What Ever, a 100-character, eight-part show that was featured on NPR as a radio play and later turned into a “living novel,” Heather Woodbury (playwright, performer and, in our opinion, badass), takes on two characters in Last Days: a 108 year-old former-stripper living in a run-down shack with no less than 27 cats, and a hyper-feminist graduate student researching her 10,000 page dissertation. Set this pair in a bleak, earthquake-torn 2014 Los Angeles, and it might sound like a premise crafted to be ridiculous enough to take the focus off of other aspects of the show. It might, except that Woodbury’s past work gives her some serious cred in the talent department, and after reading her blog entry on Steppenwolf's website, we’re pretty optimistic she'll keep us engaged for the nearly two-hour running time.

Downstairs Theatre at Steppenwolf, 1650 N Halsted St, March 3, 7:30 p.m., $30 ($20 for students, call 312-335-1620 to get the discount)

Photo by Scott Groller