WARREN

Eve Ensler toppled the first taboo with her Vagina Monologues, which tackled a subject many women were unwilling to discuss — their sexuality. So it was only a matter of time before someone would tackle another taboo and come up with a musical about hot flashes and “the change.” That was eight years ago, and Menopause The Musical is now going great guns.

The show today is playing nine countries and 37 U.S. cities, including Providence. It opens Friday at the Lederer Theater, home of Trinity Rep, for two months. And the promoters say runs such as this usually sell out.

Of course, this is a show aimed at a certain segment of the population, and that doesn’t include husbands who are dragged to the theater by their wives. Only 7 to 10 percent of the audience for Menopause is male, said Kathi Glist, one of the producers from Florida’s G Four Productions which is presenting the show at Trinity.

It’s more a celebration of women of a certain age, of which there are many. Among the 75 million baby boomers, 38 million are women who have or will soon be going through menopause. “It’s making a difference with women,” said Glist in a phone interview. “Now menopause rolls off everybody’s tongue, but when we first started it was taboo.”

The show is pretty basic. Four women of different stripes meet at a Bloomingdale’s lingerie department and find that while they lead different lives they have a lot in common when it comes to hot flashes, memory loss and sleepless nights.

But it’s the music that’s the catchy part of the show, a string of pop tunes from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that have had new lyrics written for them by the musical’s author, Jeanie Linders. She has said she has always had a knack for parodying songs.

Linders, who Glist called a “marketing person who didn’t know much about the theater,” has said the musical came to her when she had a hot flash standing in front of her freezer. She began singing the words “hot flash” to Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs.”

She later attended a performance of Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco, another parody show, and found herself saying, “I could do this.” And she did.

Glist tells a slightly different but equally plausible story. Linders was out with friends and over a glass of wine experienced at hot flash, and started singing, “I’m having a hot flash” to the tune “We’re having a heat wave.” That night she had trouble sleeping and sang “stayin’ awake” to the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive.”

The upshot was that Linders’ realized she was on to something that has resulted in what Glist called a “mini-movement.”

“It’s a vehicle for women to talk about menopause,” she said.

Glist said that when G Four first presented the show in Fort Lauderdale women did not want to leave the theater. They sat in the lobby for an hour chatting about what they just saw. And when they were told the building was being locked, they continued their conversations in the parking lot

Interestingly, G Four Productions had at one point an opportunity to produce The Vagina Monologues, but decided against it because it’s “too crass,” and insulting to men, said Glist.

“This is a comedy and a musical that’s all done for fun with nothing insulting to people,” Glist said of Menopause the Musical. “Men are not threatened by it.”

The four women in the cast have all done the show before and were brought in from other parts of the country. Glist said the characters are Linders’ alter egos. There is Professional Woman (played by Fredena Williams and Lisa Mack), the career women who seems to have lost her way while dedicating herself to her job. Then there’s the nurturing Iowa Housewife (Carolynne Warren), who has lived in her husband’s shadow; Soap Star (Cherie Price), the diva who worries about every new wrinkle; and Earth Mother (Barbara Pinolini), the laid-back ex-hippie.

Linders didn’t give her characters other names. They were meant to be types, said Glist, meant to be “every woman.”

In a sense, said Glist, the audience becomes the fifth girlfriend and ends up bonding with the other four. That’s why the show doesn’t use a star vehicle, said Glist, because “we want the cast to be every woman out there.”

And if you are a guy, the show will at least give you a sense of what women go through during menopause. Glist quoted a male audience member from Seattle who said the show should be a “mandatory workshop for all men.” And, she said, it is a fun night out as well.

“I think it’s a great way to go out and forget your woes,” said Glist. “It’s pure entertainment.”

Menopause The Musical opens Friday and runs through Aug. 2 at Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St., Providence. Tickets are $45, or $40 each for a group of ten. Call (401) 351-4242 or visit www.trinityrep.com.

cgray@projo.com