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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SINGER/COMIC LAURA AINSWORTH'S "SHIP" SETS SAIL AGAINST AGEISM DALLAS, TX – In her show, "My Ship Has Sailed" and her blog at www.lauraainsworth.com, singer/comic Laura Ainsworth preaches that "life doesn't happen on a timetable" and people should pursue their dreams at any age. But she admits that achieving her own dream of creating, producing and starring in a satirical musical show about her favorite subject wasn't a fast and easy process. "I started
doing this show in 2003 on a zero budget in a tiny club where there
were sometimes about 15 people in the audience," Ms Ainsworth
recalls. "The good part was, those 15 people really got
it." Since that
humble beginning, Ainsworth and her longtime friend and music director
Brian Piper, one of the most sought-after pianists in the Southwest,
have played to sell-out crowds in top supper
clubs and theaters, the prestigious "Out-Of-The-Loop Theatre Festival,"
both the Dallas and Las Vegas Comedy Festivals, and on her own
oft-repeated Dallas cable TV special. "I love cabarets and nightclubs," Ms Ainsworth said. "But with my background in musicals, my ultimate goal was to do this act in theater venues. I was able to add some new multi-media elements with projected visuals behind me, and I think theater audiences really appreciate the message." The message that "age is the last big, culturally-acceptable bias" is conveyed through wickedly funny monologues and parodies of songs ranging from Jerome Kern to Madonna, whose hit "Frozen" is warped into a deadpan hymn to the unintended effects of too much Botox. Ms. Ainsworth honed her song parody chops in radio - she is the co-creator of The Comedy Wire, a syndicated humor service used by morning shows worldwide - and her versatile voice can replicate numerous styles, from torch songs to grand opera. She tells her audiences, “If Julie Andrews and ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic had a child, it would be me.” It's not unusual to see tables of women who have all come together to her show to lift appletinis in appreciation of her tuneful skewering of our society's youth obsession, from jailbait fashion models to plastic surgery as TV entertainment. But Ms. Ainsworth insists her show is for men, too, with material about the societal changes that are fueling a big rise in the number of men turning to cosmetic surgeons, hair dyes and anti-aging creams. Having worked as a model, corporate writer, singer, actress and comedian, Ms. Ainsworth jokes that she's lucky enough to have personally researched ageism in a multitude of fields. This was particularly evident when she returned to the stage after several years of curtailed performances due to a serious inner ear disorder that was finally cured by a specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Discovering that she was no longer considered for some of her favorite roles, she decided to take matters into her own hands and create a show for everyone who is past – or who anticipates soon being past - the "ingénue" stage of life. Today, she is ageless in more ways than one. A slender, vivacious redhead with a youthful complexion she credits to the Perricone Diet (she even sings a mock Puccini aria, "O Worship Dr. Perricone," about the rigors of eating salmon morning and night), Ms. Ainsworth doesn’t tell her age. She advises, "If someone asks how old you are, simply reply, 'I forget...How much do you weigh?'" While she embraces other anti-ageism crusaders who say people should shout their age to the world, she says that as long as our society is so "pathologically age-obsessed," telling her age makes it easier for people to put her into a box, "and I prefer to do my thinking out-of-the-box." Ms.
Ainsworth sometimes frustrates critics who want her to make a strident
attack on the anti-aging industry. But she says attitudes about
age are far too complicated to declare a simple, "one-size-fits-all"
solution, and that it is up to each individual to decide how much
energy to devote to fighting the pressure to look younger and how much
to spend accommodating it. She prefers using laughter as a way to
point out the mixed messages that assault us daily, to make audiences
think about the intense demands we put on ourselves to keep young and
beautiful at all costs and whether it's all worth it, and to be
comfortable with whatever personal choices we make in dealing with it
all. Or as she says in "My Ship Has Sailed," "Whatever ship
you're on now, you're still the one steering it. You can always
turn the wheel." "Remember,"
she adds, "if you open your medicine cabinet and 100 different
anti-aging products fall into your sink, your problem isn't
wrinkles. It's paranoia. And, possibly, shelf space." For more information, visit http://www.lauraainsworth.com.
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Pat Reeder |