The 2014 plan was a simple one, I would “Casanova” myself around our nation’s capital looking for consenting heterosexual adult males. One no-frills lover-man for every month. I was the original calendar girl. Helen Mirren plays me in the film.
From the multi-award-winning team behind the highly-acclaimed Sexy Lamp and Bicycles and Fish comes Sticky Door, a personal, honest and funny look at sex, stigma and cystitis, directed by Ellen Havard (Ad Libido by Fran Bushe, Edinburgh Fringe 2018 and VAULT 2018; Sexy Lamp, Edinburgh Fringe 2019).
Katie Arnstein’s Sticky Door previewed at VAULT in February 2020. In the two years since, her trademark ukulele-spun storytelling show that examines sex, shame, struggles, isolation and the sisterhood has only become more relevant. Katie asks why are women facing a series of sticky doors in work, sex and life and how (tell me how) do we overcome the challenges we are continually met with? Big explorations of big dilemmas, delivered with big heart, brutal honesty and plenty of laughs.
Arnstein (Pleasance Associate Artist 2022-24 and Shortlisted for The Evening Standard Future of Theatre Award 2021) comments, I once heard Dame Minouche Shafik say she did not like the idea of a glass ceiling; she preferred the idea of a sticky door where someone on the other side helps you open it and that, once you are through, it is up to you to help the next person. For me, this was a lightbulb moment as there has never really been a glass ceiling but a series of closed doors. Some of them I have got through with the help of people on the other side. Some of them have stayed firmly shut. I hope that Sticky Door can empower the audience to knock down the doors they want to open, be kind enough help others through and encourage us to build our own spaces where the doors remain closed.
Director Ellen Havard says, What I think audiences need, more than ever, is to be told powerful, human stories; to be in a room with one another and to acknowledge that life is heavy but, that through the power of story, hope and connection, change is possible. Katie’s wit, charm and sensitive story telling is what I would prescribe any weary audience member. Sticky Door is about what it means to heal, what it means to grow and what it means to demand better.
Sticky Door is the third part in Katie Arnstein’s It’s a Girl! trilogy although you do not have to have seen any of the other shows in the trilogy to enjoy or understand this one.
