NBTF 2019: ‘Gettin’ Old is a Bitch… But I’m Gonna Wrestle that Bitch to the Ground’

Directed by Mariann Aalda, performed by SitMyAssDown Comedy Productions, Hamlin Theatre Stage 2 The Benton Convention Center

Additional info and showtimes can be found here.

Infidelity, divorce, cancer. Many would cave under the trauma that writer and director Mariann Aalda has faced in her life. Instead, she decided to create something out of the devastating events that shaped her.

“The entire show is loosely based on my personal
experiences: divorce, a cheating husband, midlife dating… even my bout with
uterine cancer,” said Aalda. “But I didn’t want to create a show about me… this
show is about the everywoman and the universality of these experiences.”

Though the challenges that come with age often leave a
person jaded, Aalda used her trauma to breathe life into her work.

Gettin’
Old Is a Bitch is a spinoff of another show penned
by Aalda titled Occupy Your Vagina! which
came out in 2013. She plays the same
character, Dr. Ginger Peechee-Keane, in each performance. Peechee-Keane, an
“adult sex-ed evangelist and mojo motivator,” gives moving speeches on
exploring one’s sexuality. Gettin’ Old,
in contrast with Occupy Your Vagina!,
leans more heavily on the theme of aging.

“The significance of this is that a lot of
the audience is made up of mature black women who are hungry for the kind of
creative content they’re not getting in TV and film,” wrote Aalda. “They’re
longing to see themselves represented as vibrant, vital — and yes, sexually
viable — which is why they come to my shows. I can’t tell you how many women
have come up to me after the show and told me that they were Ginger and that I
had told their story. That was my goal, exactly.”