SLUTNYCPress Release

SLUT à la carte … Afraid of repeating her past mistakes, Matilda is a woman passionately committed to happiness, love and avoiding the pitfalls of being someone’s girlfriend or wife. Proud of finding the simple secrets of staying single, enjoying love and having an extraordinary sex life, she’s in for a surprise when she’s arrested for running a brothel. Now exposed, Matilda is forced to decide if there’s something wrong with her while confronting social contradictions, disapproval, and her need for vindication.

As long time artistic partners, Brenda McFarlane wrote SLUT à la carte for Heidi Weeks and created a challenging piece that incorporates Weeks’ considerable talent, comic timing, and physical and emotional versatility. Toronto's NOW Magazine wrote "Few performances equal Heidi Weeks…. Weeks creates a universe of always believable and sympathetic characters". Before moving to Toronto, Weeks lived in New York City and trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Heidi is no stranger to either one-woman shows or fringe theatre; she toured the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit in the one woman comedy "Growl Sweetly" directed by McFarlane. The Edmonton's Star Phoenix described her as putting on "one tiger of a performance...one of the best performances of this year's Fringe." Weeks won Best Actress for her performance in Sylvia in the title role at The Cider Mill Playhouse in Binghamton, NY

It was no surprise to fans of Heidi Weeks or Far Fetched Productions when SLUT became one of the top selling shows of the Toronto Fringe Festival. The company, with McFarlane at the helm, has developed a reputation for producing remarkable comedies that rely on the talent of the performers to give the audience moments of shared recognition, laughter, raw emotional honesty, and opportunities to explore social conflict, judgment and personal ethics.

McFarlane wrote and directed 7 successful plays in a row in her hometown of Toronto. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, wrote "McFarlane is one of the brightest young writer/directors around these days." There, she developed a reputation as the go-to director for new plays. In Los Angeles, she directed The Pig and I by South African playwright Evelyn Tollman which was described in LA weekly as a "sprightly fable of insecurity and acceptance [which] benefits greatly from director Brenda McFarlane’s blithe and trim staging."