Perfect reflection of imperfect bodies

When they decided to open the theater’s 76th season Friday with “Calendar Girls,” the members of Olympia Little Theatre’s play-reading committee had many reasons for the decision.

For one, the play was based on the popular 2003 film, so many people will recognize the name. The film was in turn inspired by the true story of a group of British women who posed nude for a calendar.

“We really needed a heartwarming play, an emotionally satisfying play, and it definitely is that,” said Toni Holm, president of the theater’s board. Holm was the one who suggested the play.

“What drew me to the play was that it has this really wild, fun but believable premise of these ladies who are going to do a little girly calendar to raise money to buy a couch for a hospital,” said Kendra Malm, the play’s director. “It snowballed, so instead of doing this little calendar to raise a few hundred pounds, they became international celebrities.”

But the play also presented a big challenge.

In the calendar, strategically placed props preserved the models’ modesty. But keeping covered on a thrust stage — one that’s visible to the audience from three sides — is a lot more difficult than doing so in a two-dimensional photograph.

“How do we hide the important bits?” said Malm, also the theater’s artistic manager. “Very carefully.

“We have the lights up all the time,” she added. “We have the rest of the cast around doing discreet covering so that the girls can disrobe behind draperies or little set pieces or the photography reflectors and then turn around.”

Holm was drawn to the play because it deals with body image.

“The play is about these women realizing that they are beautiful at any age and any size,” she said. “These were real women with real bodies who are heavy or who have blotches or who have cellulite. They don’t look like 20-year-old airbrushed models.”

If the original “Calendar Girls” had reservations about revealing so much, so too did some of the cast.

“I persuaded actors to audition for it who said, ‘I wouldn’t look good,’” Holm said. “We weren’t looking for perfect bodies.”

When they returned for callbacks, the actresses who’d be playing the girls were asked to undress — and the rest of the female cast and crew did the same.

“We wanted everybody to see each other and feel comfortable with each other and realize that everyone thinks her own body is funny looking,” she said. “None of these people looks like a Sports Illustrated model, not one of them, because you know what? No one looks like a Sports Illustrated model unless they have been Photoshopped.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Perfect reflection of imperfect bodies."