A night of sexual satire, burlesque and spoken-word poetry is planned for March 12 at Centretown’s Dom Polski Hall to raise money for Planned Parenthood Ottawa.
Sexual Overtones, a local vaudeville troupe, will be performing two shows for the fundraising event, Ménage à Trois: Three’s a Crowd Pleaser.
After a year of planning, the efforts of Sexual Overtones, Planned Parenthood Ottawa and Apartment613 are set to pay off.
Saturday’s event also includes spoken-word performer Nadine Thornhill, a sexual health educator at Planned Parenthood and the sex columnist for Apartment613.
Last year, Apartment613 and Sexual Overtones paired up for A Valentine’s Afternoon Tea-ser, an event to raise money for the website to keep it advertisement-free. François Levesque, an editor for the website, says the event was very successful.
Apartment613 is a not-for-profit website whose goal is to keep the Ottawa community informed of arts and culture events that occur in the city.
Heather Holland, executive director at Planned Parenthood Ottawa, says her organization was very keen to work with the two community groups because they all work to promote sexuality positively.
The groups address sex in a non-judgmental manner, which is important to keeping conversation about sex open, she says.
“There’s a nice synergy to what all three groups do,” she says.
Holland says she thinks the show will sell out and hopes the event will raise around $5,000 for her organization, which promotes conversations about sex and provides services without moral judgment to their clients.
The money will be used for programming such as Planned Parenthood’s educational theatre troupe support services, which is run by a group of senior students who create, direct and present a play to peers about issues such as body image, pregnancy and abstinence.
Sexual Overtones performer Kimberly Horne says her troupe raises funds for local charities.
Although the troupe’s primary goal is to raise money for Planned Parenthood, Horne says they also want people to see a sexy side of Ottawa that they might not be exposed to otherwise.
“When people see us, they think that they can be sexy too. And they can,” she says.