The first ten minutes of this video is a PREVIEW of the musical NINE MONTHS.
The next 10 minutes is a PREVIEW for the sequel, NINE MONTHS 2.
Directed by
ELISE DEWBERRY
Accompaniment by
LESLIE ARDEN
Set and Costume Design by
DAVID W. JUBY
Lighting Design by
SHARI BECK
Logo Artwork and Earrings by
CATHY ELLIOTT
NINE MONTHS
Book and Lyrics by
CARL RITCHIE
Music by
STEPHEN WOODJETTS
Additional Arrangements by
LESLIE ARDEN
THE STORY
NINE MONTHS is a unique tour-de-force performance in which one actress has the opportunity to create three very different women with one common experience – pregnancy. As the three women make their periodic visits to the omnipotent “Dr. Blake” – we live through that experience with them.
Margot is a no-nonsense career woman who is sure that she can slot a pregnancy into her busy schedule without causing any problems. During her first trimester, however, she discovers that it is not as easy as she thought to sell an advertising campaign for a new dog food while she is suffering from morning sickness!
Dawn is a left-over flower child who is determined to go it alone and all natural. She only visits the doctor to appease her over-protective father – but she finally ends up at the hospital when she realizes during labour that giving birth to twins is going to take more drugs than her midwife can prescribe!
Jennie is a sweet, shy housewife who has already suffered a miscarriage and has promised herself to keep this pregnancy a secret as long as possible. This proves to be more difficult than she thought when she begins to have a problem that she can only express in euphemistic expressions in the hysterically funny song “The Wind isn’t in the Willows”.
The entire piece is knitted together by a running technical commentary from the Narrator of a mythical video tape series on the Miracle of Human Development – and is liberally sprinkled with a series of hilarious songs including the “Labor Trio” sung by all three ladies as they actually give birth!
Margot
“I quit the pill just to be ill”
Jennie
“Oh, Dr. Blake – the wind isn’t in the willows!”
Dawn
“I changed my mind – I want all the drugs you can throw at me!”
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING …
… about the show …
“A single stool on the darkened stage greets the audience at Gryphon Theatre’s fourth presentation of the season – NINE MONTHS. Take a deep breath because soon you’ll descend into a dizzying fast-paced musical that will leave you laughing.”
Jennifer Harker Barrie Advance
“NINE MONTHS, a one-woman two-act musical comedy about pregnancy, had its world premiere here Wednesday night and it’s a healthy, bouncing, baby hit. Ritchie’s script is wonderfully witty. His lyrics, for subjects as unlikely as flatulence and increased breast size during pregnancy, are a tribute to the terrific rhyming schemes of the Broadway greats. The text is hilariously funny without making fun of women or pregnancy. It enlightens, explores, and celebrates.”
David Akin Orillia Packet & Times
“The triumph of NINE MONTHS is that it mines the miracle of pregnancy and birth so richly for such a broad range of humor while acknowledging the miracle. Only a fine touch and genuine comic finesse could pull if off. Dewsberry, and NINE MONTHS, are blessed with both.”
Janice Kennedy Ottawa Citizen
“Writer and lyricist Carl Ritchie and composer Stephen Woodjetts vary the musical styles of their clever and humorous songs ranging from the hip-hop ‘NINE MONTHS RAP’ to the touching ‘LABOUR TRIO’ and the hilariously appropriate ‘THE WIND ISN’T IN THE WILLOWS’, which details certain bodily functions gone awry at the onset of pregnancy.”
Michelle Valiquet Winchester Press
“NINE MONTHS has a refreshing and uninhibited honesty about it which sometimes catches the audience by surprise, providing a lot of hilarity.”
Judy Vecsernyes Newmarket Era-Banner
“Occasionally a production is so well executed, so seamlessly mounted, that the only challenge is finding enough superlatives to do it justice. Just such a soaring show has touched down on the Arbour Theatre stage this week. NINE MONTHS is warm, fresh, ribald, and very, very funny. The songs cover everything from how one character craves sex during her pregnancy to another’s problem with excessive farting. Unbelievably, these songs aren’t tasteless; the lyrics are right on the edge, perhaps, but Dewsberry’s innocent, earnest facial expressions make them seem (almost) like church hymns.”
Lynda Ashley Peterborough Examiner
“NINE MONTHS is a clever musical by Canadian writer Carl Ritchie and composer Stephen Woodjetts, with applaudably witty lyrics from Ritchie. NINE MONTHS is a bouncing bundle of musical comedy joy.”
Stewart Brown Hamilton Spectator
“If you think there isn’t anything funny about pregnancy and child birth, then you haven’t been to the Memorial Hall in Port Carling to see NINE MONTHS – a musical celebration of childbirth as it really is, gas and all! It is a charming little piece that will give you so much to laugh about you’ll have a hard time keeping up. The book and lyrics are by Carl Ritchie and music by Stephen Woodjetts – what would these two guys know about the inner workings of a woman’s womb? From the script, I’d say a heck of a lot. And, when their ideas are so hilariously portrayed, well the mind boggles. It’s an hour and a half of non-stop laughter, tears (from laughing so hard) and more laughter.”
Joanne Bury Gravenhurst News
“To describe something so fresh, simple and fun might spoil some of the surprise of the play, but read enough to book tickets for today and another night too because you will want to go again.”
Peggy Guiler-Delahunt Nanticoke Times
“If you think a man cannot write a funny script about what women go through in pregnancy, think again. Fredericton-native Carl Ritchie’s script and lyrics are laced with one-liners sure to put a smile on anyone’s face. The music, written by Stephen Woodjetts, is also top-notch.”
Andrew Bailey Port Dover Gazette
“Much of the fun is in writer Ritchie’s lyrics as Dewsberry croons about biological clocks, lovers who leave you in the lurch, morning sickness, flatulence, cravings, labor pains and breastfeeding.”
Stewart Brown Hamilton Spectator
… about the audience appeal …
“NINE MONTHS is an engaging, funny, and, yes, ultimately moving theatrical experience – for any gender, lifestyle orientation or parental persuasion.”
Janice Kennedy Ottawa Citizen
“You’d think a musical centred on pregnancy might be one of those ‘women’s plays’ – but at NINE MONTHS the men in the audience seemed to be laughing longer and louder than anyone else.”
Michelle Valiquet Winchester Press
“NINE MONTHS delivers the laughs for everyone – parent or not.”
Jennifer Harker Barrie Advance
“Men were laughing as uproariously as women, proving the play isn’t a series of in jokes for mothers only.”
Lynda Ashley Peterborough Examiner
“Monday night’s audience was tops. Not only were they enthusiastic in their applause, giving the cast a well earned standing ovation, but they kept laughing and talking long after the lights went out. They couldn’t help themselves, it was too funny.”
Joanne Bury Gravenhurst News
“It’s not only women who relate to the storyline. The men in the audience laughed and hooted just as loudly and more than one had tears of mirth in his eyes.”
Judy Vecsernyes Era-Banner
“By the way, gentlemen, if you are tempted to think this might be a “girls only show” you are wrong. Though experience may add to the humor for the ladies, I noticed the men were laughing just as hard as the rest of us.”
Peggy Guiler-Delahunt Nanticoke Times
“There are no pregnant pauses in NINE MONTHS. That’s because the audiences are too busy laughing at this new Canadian one-woman musical to allow any lines to linger.”
Stewart Brown Hamilton Spectator
“The humour in NINE MONTHS is well planned and written to keep fathers, mothers or children laughing throughout.”
Brenda Bouw London Free Press
… about the performance …
“To say that Dewsberry is a gifted actress and singer is an understatement; she breezily switches characters with one arch of an eyebrow or one vocal inflection, like some schizophrenic, music hall Sybil.”
Lynda Ashley Peterborough Examiner
“Witty, fast-paced and droll are all adjectives that describe veteran actor Elise Dewsberry’s performance as she uses her mobile face and attention to detail to switch between three very different women characters sharing the same obstetrician.”
Michelle Valiquet Winchester Press
“With her wonderful facial expressions and clever lyrics Dewsberry easily switches back and forth from each strongly defined and easily identifiable character.”
Jennifer Harker Barrie Advance
“With utmost ease Dewsberry tells the stories of three pregnant women from conception to birth. The accuracy of her portrayals is what makes her performance so comical – and nothing is taboo. From excruciating gas to wild cravings for sex to feeling like the Goodyear Blimp – it’s all there. It’s all true and it’s all funny. She never missed a beat, she never slowed down, and the audience was with her to the very end.”
Donna Danyluk Barrie Examiner
“Dewsberry, like a light-bulb on stage, switches on and off between characters in an instant and shines through each scene of the two-act play.”
Brenda Bouw London Free Press
“It’s an impressive turn for Dewsberry, a singing actress with a bent for banjo-eyed comedy. She creates three distinct characters in dialogue with their obstetrician, belts out a dozen songs, and intersperses each skit with precise clinical descriptions of stages and side effects of pregnancy. Dewsberry is “on” from the first of 90 sparkling minutes. And when all is said and sung – and NINE MONTHS doesn’t skip a beat in its affectionate satire of pregnancy and birth – there is a tender, touching joy.”
Stewart Brown Hamilton Spectator
“Dewsberry really lets her hair down in this hilarious one-woman show. She runs the gamut of emotions, taking the audience with her every step of the way from tenderness to self-doubt, from intense joy to raucous silliness and fun.”
Judy Vecsernyes Newmarket Era-Banner
“The near-capacity crowd was left shrieking with laughter and raving over Elise Dewsberry’s hilarious, sympathetic portrayal of three totally different women coping with pregnancy. Ms. Dewsberry single-handedly fills the stage with characters in this lusty offering of three different perspectives of the nine-month process. Ms. Dewsberry is gifted with the ability to change roles in an instant. A tilt of the head, a lift of the eyebrow, a hand gesture, and she’s suddenly a new person.”
Denise Potter Georgina Advocate
“Without ever changing clothes or set or shape, Dewsberry makes the personalities of three very different women become vivid at the twist of her head, the blink of her eye and even in the middle of a song. She had us waiting for every line and never left us disappointed.”
Peggy Guiler-Delahunt Nanticoke Times
“Dewsberry manages to maintain an appropriate pace, find the punch lines with laser-like accuracy, and exude a magnetic sense of effortlessness.”
David Akin Orillia Packet & Times
“Dewsberry pops from character to character, at times with the speed of light, cleverly showing us by tone of voice or tilt of her head, exactly who is speaking and what’s up. She is, in a word, magnificent.”
Joanne Bury Gravenhurst News
Below is a full performance of NINE MONTHS from the Gryphon Theatre in Barrie, Ontario.
THE HISTORY
NINE MONTHS was commissioned in 1990 and received a small Playwright Recommendor grant from the Muskoka Festival in Ontario, Canada, at that time. A one-hour cabaret version of the show was completed in the spring of 1992 and was performed to rave reviews at the CAMTA Swing Shift Series (April 12); the Red Barn Theatre (September 6); the Stratford Festival Cabaret Series (September 10); ArtsWeek 92; a North American Life Executive Appreciation Dinner; again at the Swing Shift Series at the Bottom Line Cafe on November 15 and 16, 1992; the Wildwood Lodge Women’s Retreat in February of 1993; and the annual Muskoka Benefit Dinner in May of 1993.
NINE MONTHS was expanded to a full-length musical in two acts and premiered at the Red Barn Theatre in their 1993 summer season. The writer and composer added five new songs to lengthen the show to a total of 90 minutes (including one 15-minute intermission). After a two-week run at the Red Barn, NINE MONTHS went on to play for sold-out crowds and rave reviews at the Lighthouse Festival (two weeks) in Port Dover and the Muskoka Festival (one week) in Port Carling.
NINE MONTHS began 1994 with a successful one-week engagement Off-Off-Broadway at the West Bank Downstairs Theatre in New York City, followed by a four-week run at the Senator Cabaret in Toronto and three weeks at Hamilton’s 750-seat Theatre Aquarius. The summer 1994 tour included the Georgetown Arts Alive Festival (one night); the Pointe-au-Baril Arts on the Bay Festival (one night); the Arbour Theatre in Peterborough (one week); the Gryphon Theatre in Barrie (two weeks); the Upper Canada Playhouse in Morrisburg (three weeks); the Sudbury Theatre Centre (one week); and a return to the Wildwood Lodge.
1995 included a run at Angie’s Country Kitchen Dinner Theatre in St. Agatha (for the Union Theatre); one night stands in Brampton and Kingsville; a run at the Chester Festival Theatre in Nova Scotia; the Lost Nations Theatre in Montpelier, Vermont; an eight city tour of Newfoundland and Labrador; a five city tour of Northeastern Ontario; and two weeks at the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary. 1996 included one night stands at Brock University, the Oakville Centre, the Chatham Cultural Centre, the Meadowvale Theatre, the Victoria Playhouse, and the Capitol Theatre (Windsor); a week run at the Markham Theatre; repeat performances at the Sudbury Theatre Centre and the Union Theatre in Waterloo; and a special two-week summer run at Theatre New Brunswick.
The summer of 1996 saw the launching of the sequel – NINE MONTHS II – LIFE AFTER BIRTH – which premiered at the Gryphon Theatre in Barrie and went gone on to play at the Upper Canada Playouse, the Lighthouse Festival, the Sudbury Theatre Centre, the Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary, the Oakville Centre, the Victoria Playhouse, the Chatham Cultural Centre, and has toured Northeastern Ontario. 1997 saw NINE MONTHS at a five week run at the new location for Solar Stage Theatre in Toronto, the Arnprior Concert Series, another Northeastern Ontario tour, and summer runs at the Woodstock Little Theatre and the Kawartha Summer Festival in Lindsay. In 1998, NINE MONTHS had limited runs at the Limelight Dinner theatre, the Woodstock Little Theatre, and Theatre Orangeville. In 1999, NINE MONTHS and NINE MONTHS II had an extended run at the Port Mansion Dinner Theatre in Saint Catharines, Ontario. NINE MONTHS also made a special appearance at the Rathfon Inn in Port Colbourne.
In the year 2000, NINE MONTHS ran for three weeks at the Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ontario, for five weeks at the Long Beach Playhouse in Long Beach, California, and for two weeks at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and 2001 brought a 3-day run at the Keltic Lodge in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; 2002 a 3-day run at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Tampa Bay, Florida, and 2003-2006 brought a handful of single presentations at the Long Beach Playhouse Cabaret, and the West End Theatre in Virginia.
After a total of over 400 performances, Elise did her final farewell performances in 2009 at the Copake Theatre in New York.
The show is now available to license to other multi-talented, tour-de-force actresses who are still of child-bearing age!
NINE MONTHS “2” begins where the original NINE MONTHS leaves off – as Margot, Dawn and Jennie bring their new babies home.
To bring the audience “up to speed” – we begin with a brief retrospective of Part One – as introduced by our favourite video-tape Narrator from Growth Video’s MIRACLE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT series. This will remind our audiences about career-minded Margot who is surprised with a daughter; hippy hold-over Dawn who has her hands full with unexpected twin boys; and sweet, shy Jennie who is thrilled with her new son.
In this tribute to the first year of life, our ladies have the opportunity to meet! They all make a habit of spending time on the same park bench, and find themselves discussing the ups and downs of motherhood.
As we progress through the next twelve months, Margot will begin to resent the fact that her Nanny, Maria, is bonding more fully with little Samantha; Dawn discovers that even with Jake’s help – twin boys are more than a handful; and Jennie can’t get over how perfect little Johnny is!
After several months, Jennie begins to feel guilty about staying home with Johnny and wonders if she should be “fulfilling” herself with a career. She gets conflicting advice: Margot insists that a woman MUST work outside the home in order to be a complete person; Dawn insists that any woman who works outside the home has abandoned her child. The vehemence of these two arguments mounts to a near explosion that makes us wonder if these two ladies are protesting too much!
Once the smoke has cleared, Margot has decided to take a leave of absence so that she can spend more time with Samantha; Dawn decides to turn more of the parenting over to Jake so that she can have some time on her own; and Jennie decides to open a day-care in her home so that she can have a career AND be at home with Johnny!
The ladies all pause for a sentimental moment as they watch their troupe of one-year-olds take their first tentative steps.
As with Part One, the entire piece is knitted together by a running technical commentary from a mythical video tape series on the Miracle of Human Development – and is liberally sprinkled with a series of hilarious songs including the “THE POST-PARTUM BLUES”; “L’AMOUR”; “FIRST STEPS”; and “THE SLEEP DEPRIVATION TRIO”.
NINE MONTHS “2” is a unique tour-de-force performance in which one actress has the opportunity to create three very different women with one common experience – motherhood.
