Director Tory James has put together a “wonderful cast” drawn from the campus and surrounding community for a staged reading of Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, tonight—Friday, December 7.

“We have a great group this year,” says James, a photographer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning. “And you can’t go wrong with this material. I guarantee that people will be laughing until they cry.”

James describes the seven women who will read:

• Leslie McCurdy, international dancer, singer, actor and raconteur;
• Susan Gold Smith, retired visual arts professor and budding impresario;
• Catherine Hundleby, doctor of philosophy and documented guerilla gardener;
• Heather Hartley, professor of media, women’s studies, and hybrid Hondas. “She is cross appointed and you can’t hear her coming.”
• Josie “Whipper” Watson, poet, professor of nursing, and wrestler of curling stones;
• Lindsey “Tulkamania” Virban, a bartender of withering wit and a punishing jammer with the Border City Brawlers;
• Mary “Q” Quenneville, “They call her Q. That’s all we know—that’s all anyone needs to know. We found out that she is an alumna, and that she is training young minds in a secondary school somewhere near here. We suspect that she will deploy them in her plans for world domination.”

The reading will start at 7:30 p.m. at Lefty’s Underground, 89 University Avenue West. The doors open at 6 p.m.; admission is by donation to the Windsor Youth Centre, a drop-in centre serving homeless and at-risk youth between the ages of 16 and 20.