Love Sex Ru

Love Sex Ru

Cinnabar Theater presents the one-woman streaming play ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth.’ |
“I appreciate how comfortable, and easy and open she is talking about sex,” says Ann Woodhead of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whom she is playing here in “Becoming Dr. Ruth.” (DENNIS WYGENT/CINNABAR THEATER)
Ann Woodhead, talking about sex (naturally) as Dr. Ruth Westheimer in Cinnabar Theater’s “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” streaming for 10 days beginning this Friday, May 21. (PHOTO BY DENNIS WYGENT/CINNABAR THEATER)
The original Dr. Ruth Westheimer, at the Governors Awards at the Dolby Theater on October 27, 2019 in Los Angeles. (PHOTO BY KATHY HUTCHINS)
Ann Woodhead, as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, holds up a photo of herself with Paul McCartney of the Beatles. (DENNIS WYGENT/CINNABAR THEATER)
The actual photo of Dr. Ruth with Paul McCartney. (COURTESY OF CINNABAR THEATER)
This device is unable to display framed content. Click here to view this embed.

Please choose a display name and image to use when commenting:

(These can't be changed, choose wisely!)

(This icon can be updated by visiting
Gravatar.com using your account login email)

Find it Fast

Obituaries
Arrest Logs
Opinion/Letters
Blogs
Dining
Events Calendar
Single Copy Locations

Other Sections

Real Estate
High School Sports
Towns
Public / Legal Notices

Contact + Help

Contact Us
Work With Us
Advertising
Corrections
About Us
Privacy Policy
Diversity Statement
Special Sections/Magazines
Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell My Personal Info

Subscribers

Manage Home Delivery
Subscribe
e-Edition
Archives
Newsletters

We use cookies to optimize your experience, analyze traffic, and personalize content. To learn more, please visit our Privacy Policy .
WHAT? From Cinnabar Theater, “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” a one-woman show about the famous sex therapist by playwright Mark St. Germain.
WHEN? Extended through June 6. On opening night, the show live-streams at 7:30 p.m., and remains available for on-demand viewing for 48 hours. The show will then be available for on-demand streaming for 48 hours per ticket, through May 30 at midnight.
INFORMATION/TICKET PURCHASE? Go to CinnabarTheater.org .
Until 2021, actor Ann Woodhead has counted herself fortunate to have played the iconic sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, not just once, but twice, in two separate productions of the tour de force one-woman-show “Becoming Dr. Ruth.”
Those two productions — at Mendocino Theatre Company in 2016 and at Main Stage West in Sebastopol in 2017 — have been valuable tests of Woodhead’s endurance and skill, requiring the veteran actor to take the stage all alone for 90-plus minutes of nonstop theatrical engagement.
“Of course, both of those shows were done in front of live audiences,” she noted with a laugh, speaking by phone from her home on the Mendocino Coast. “This third time, the big challenge has been doing the show for no one but the director and stage manager, and then the camera crew. As an actor, how do you wrap your head around performing without any response from the people in the seats?”
For the record, there weren’t very many seats in place at Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater two weeks ago, when Woodhead — with director Elizabeth Craven and assistant director-stage manager Betty Abramson on hand — taped the production that will launch 10-days of streaming this weekend, beginning on Friday, May 21.
“There’s always something new you can learn from a piece, and I have learned so many things from this experience,” Woodhead explained. “Doing this kind of work, you have to be very comfortable with stillness, because the camera is a different kind of audience. I learned how to be more still when I needed to, and I learned how to work the timing of the performance — not just comic timing, holding for the laughs I can’t hear, but other kinds of timing too. And I have to say, after rehearsing this thing in an empty room for weeks, it was a relief when shooting day finally arrived, and I had a camera crew to perform for.”
An award-winning dancer, actor, choreographer and director, Woodhead is among the very first theater artists to work at Cinnabar Theater when it opened its doors in 1972. After teaching dance at Sonoma State University from 1975 to 2001, and then moving to Mendocino, Woodhead has continued to direct, and has appeared in numerous plays at Mendocino Theatre Company, with occasional forays back into Sonoma County.
“It’as always nice to come back to Cinnabar Theater,” said Woodhead. “And it’s wonderful to work with Beth and Betty, of course.”
It is, in fact, the same team she worked with on the two previous productions of “Becoming Dr. Ruth.”
“This really has been a different kind of experience,” agrees Craven. “We realized early on that we couldn’t pretend there was an audience in the theater. So in this one, Dr. Ruth is very much aware that she is being filmed, and delivers her story to the camera in all the places where she would normally be directing her performance to the people in the room. It works very well, actually. It turns out to be quite powerful and intimate. And somehow, it’s maybe a little funnier too.”
Craven, who recently retired as artistic director of Main Stage West in Sebastopol, served on the faculty of SSU Theatre Arts Department from 1987 to 1995, She was founder and co-artistic director (with Amy Glazer) of the Western Union Theater Company, which was in residence at Cinnabar from 1981 to 1994.
One of the best things about theater is the way that a particular play can mean different things at different times. Craven believes that is the case with “Becoming Dr. Ruth.” After 14 months of universal trauma from COVID-19 and the isolation and fear that have been the result, the opportunity to spend 90 minutes with Ruth Westheimer might be just what people need right now.
“The sex talk aside — and there is some very frank talk about sex in this play, which is actually delightful — Dr. Ruth’s ability to find goodness in people, to find a way to move forward regardless of the challenge, is a very hopeful message. It gives you strength, because Ruth Westheimer faced some devastating challenges in her life — ans he talks about them in this play.”
Born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Germany, Dr. Ruth is still talking frankly with people around the globe, helping them to achieve better and healthier sex lives, all while maintaining her characteristic sense of humor about the human sexuality. She survived the Holocaust when her parents sent her to Switzerland. She never saw them again. Married three times, the final union to Manfred Westheimer, who had also escaped Nazi Germany. They were married until his death in 1997. To date, Westheimer has written 45 books, including “Sex for Dummies” and “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” and has hosted more than a dozen television and radio shows. In St. Germain’s play, Westheimer relates the details of her life in surprisingly moving and often hilarious monologue, interspersed with phone calls in which she gives outrageously funny and sensibly clear advice.
“I love some of those phone calls,” said Woodhead. “They are among my favorite parts of the show. There’s one phone conversation where she tells a guy named Mike that he shouldn’t worry about the size of his penis.That’s an especially wonderful moment.”
One would assume that, having performed the play three times now, Woodhead learns something new about Dr. Ruth with every new production.
“To tell you the truth, I think I find out more about myself each time I do this, than I find out about Dr. Ruth,” Woodhead said. “But I always try to be as true to Dr. Ruth as I can be without simply imitating her. More and more, I appreciate how comfortable, and easy and open she is talking about sex — which isn’t me at all! It’s easy for me to talk about sex when I’m playing her, on stage. But not so easy for me in private life. That is one of the wonderful things about theater.”
It is not a leap of logic to assume that, at this point, Woodhead keeps playing this part because she genuinely loves something about the piece, whether it’s a chance to become Dr. Ruth, or to simply take another shot at what must be a theatrical marathon for any actor.
“I have to admit, I was a little worried about my own stamina, at 81,” Woodhead admitted, with another laugh. “It’s been three-and-a-half years since the last time I did this, and quite frankly, I was nervous about whether I’d have what it takes to do something like this. Well, it turns out I do — which, at my age, is a very nice thing to find out.”
WHAT? From Cinnabar Theater, “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” a one-woman show about the famous sex therapist by playwright Mark St. Germain.
WHEN? Extended through June 6. On opening night, the show live-streams at 7:30 p.m., and remains available for on-demand viewing for 48 hours. The show will then be available for on-demand streaming for 48 hours per ticket, through May 30 at midnight.
INFORMATION/TICKET PURCHASE? Go to CinnabarTheater.org .

All Titles TV Episodes Celebs Companies Keywords Advanced Search
Fully supported English (United States) Partially supported Français (Canada) Français (France) Deutsch (Deutschland) हिंदी (भारत) Italiano (Italia) Português (Brasil) Español (España) Español (México)

Sort by:
Popularity ▲
| A-Z
| User Rating
| Number of Votes
| US Box Office
| Runtime
| Year
| Release Date
| Date of Your Rating
| Your Rating

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7.3 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4.7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.1 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.3 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7.4 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.9 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.9 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.9 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.9 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.3 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.3 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4.5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

3.5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.9 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4.7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7.1 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4.4 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

4 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

3.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

7.7 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.8 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

5.5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

6.5 / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

- / 10
X

18+
|
79 min
|

Drama, Romance

Director Pavel Ruminov wanted to break up with his girlfriend. But she had a different opinion on the matter and refused to leave the flat, insisting their story was not over yet.

Director:
Pavel Ruminov
|
Stars:
Natalya Anisimova ,
Pavel Ruminov ,
Maria Lavrova ,
Rafael Durnonyan

18+
|
82 min
|

Drama

Midwife Lena, a loving wife, is driven towards a string of infidelities after her husband continues to neglect her.

TV-MA
|
53 min
|

Crime, Drama, Thriller

The main character is an extraordinary and mysterious person, at the same time, he (Rodion Meglin) is an outstanding inspector. Rodion is used to work alone in order to keep the secrecy of ... See full summary »

93 min
|

Drama, Romance

The events of the controversial novel "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov pick up in modern day Russia.

18+
|
124 min
|

Crime, Drama, Thriller

First erotic thriller In Russia. Story starts with a summer fling between a provincial guy and a big-city girl. The holiday is over, the beauty returns to the
Lesbian Cruises
Tattooed Redhead
Project Snow Porn

Love Sex Ru

Report Page