Rotorua Little Theatre's Calendar Girls

LITTLE THEATRE: Rotorua Little Theatre members Sue Morrison (left) and Steve English rehearsing for tonight's opening show CalendarGirls.

The promotional posters for the Rotorua Little Theatre's Calendar Girls production show six scantily dressed women.

But any nudity featured in the show is a small part of the overall plot, said director Jill Horne.

"The undress is a very brief part of the show," she said.

Nudity or not, the production has already sold out for the opening nights of the first week.

"It's obviously appealing to people to go along."

The cast of 14 have been rehearsing for the past eight weeks at Shambles Theatre and were scheduled to have the final dress rehearsal last night.

"It's a big production and it's been quite complicated to direct with a lot of scene changes," she said.

It was only recently rights to stage an amateur production of the play were made available, she said.

The inspiration to direct the first local production of Calendar Girls came after seeing two productions in Cardiff and Cambridge, she said.

Based on a true story the plot centres around a group of Women's Institute members posing semi-naked for a calendar to help raise funds for leukaemia research.

The original 2003 film, starring Helen Mirren, was so successful, the appeal transformed into real life to raise millions of dollars for leukaemia research through merchandise, including more annual calendars.

Critics described the film as "wry-crisp comedy about British modesty" and "sweet, good humoured" and "genial".

The local production will donate 5 per cent of sales to New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation from the 12 performances.