If only the packed Martha Cohen Theatre realized what they were witnessing. In January 2010 during the High Performance Rodeo’s 10 Minute Play Festival, Rebecca Northan, Julie Orton and Chantal Perron walked onstage and created history.

The short piece in which three girls, armed with only charm and lingerie, tried to prevent the assassination of a diplomat. They left the audience both in awe and in stitches. After the show I told Rebecca how much I loved the performance and thought it should be a full length piece. I got home and e-mailed Ground Zero Theatre’s Ryan Luhning and told him the exact same thing. I wasn’t the only one, and now 15 months later Kung Fu Panties kicks down the door of The Studio at Vertigo Theatre, March 18th to April 3rd.

"For me part of it is this theory I have that if you do what you love with the people you love, something is created that draws interest. My buddies made the film Fubar and it came out of doing something fun for the summer and seeing what happened," Northan explained. "That was the intention of the 10 minute play, I wanted to do something with Chantal and Julie because I love those chicks and think they kick ass, so let’s do a piece where we kick ass. It went from there. They were in it from the beginning so it was helpful to know I was writing for those two girls, for specific people in my mind, which made it a lot easier because I could imagine their voices."

Northan chatted with GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine on a break from rehearsals. She admitted she was surprised when Luhning asked her to write the script. Though she created Blind Date, it was an improvised show, so writing a set script was a new challenge.

"Ryan came to me in the dressing room after the festival and said, I think I want to comission the full length, and I said, Oh shut up. He took me for lunch a few days later and said, I am serious, I am comissioning this. I thought, Oh God... I have to write a play! I have written in the past collaboratively through an improvised process. Other than assignments in school, this is the first time I have sat down at a computer by myself and gone, what will the next person say?"

Kung Fu Panties (KFP) is a perfect fit for Ground Zero Theatre/Hit & Myth Productions, the same company that brought shows like Urinetown, My First Time, Speed The Plow and Evil Dead: The Musical to Calgary. On a personal level, there is a lot of history between Northan and those involved in KFP.

"The first production meeting, I looked around the table and said, probably 85% of the people sitting around the table are my alumni at the University of Calgary. 15 years later we are still working together, here we are. That’s pretty cool. It makes me feel like a veteran of some artistic war. We all started in University with hopes and dreams, and wanting to make your life in the arts, [not knowing] how hard it is going to be. 15 years later to be with Ryan Luhning, who I hung out with, and some of the production guys, feels pretty amazing."

Marketed as a live action movie, complete with car chases and fight sequences, the show has a lot of depth and heart behind the action.

"It starts with the kind of comedy I like, which is truthful comedy. At the nugget of the ridiculousness of Kung Fu Panties is a love story, because I think everything stems from that. There is a love story, there is a strong friendship that has undergone a betrayal, and forgiveness and healing comes about. In training at Loose Moose I was always taught that an evening of theatre, you don’t want soup followed by soup followed by soup because you are unsatisfied at the end of the night. There is some soup in this, and cotton candy, but also a main course, a strong through-line that the comedy and action can sit on top of."

As one can imagine, it has been a hectic and intense rehearsal process.

"It is the most overwhelming and exciting, inspiring rehearsal process I have ever been in. We are all bruised but happily bruised. It feels like we are rehearsing at least three shows at the same time because the fights are very involved and a huge component of the show. So we spend half of the day working on fights, the other half working on the script and then thrown in there occasionally is some choreography because there are dance scenes as well. There is a lot of giggling and jumping up and down. If we can pull this off it will be the most fun any of us have ever had in the theatre."

This is an impressive statement considering how many of the cast and crew worked Evil Dead: The Musical, which was also ridiculously fun. Northan agrees this is the case.

"When we rehearsed [Evil Dead] we were doing a tried and true product. We could relax a little bit because other people had done it and worked out the kinks and we could just have fun with it. This is the beginning of the creation process. If Kung Fu Panties has a longer life, it will change a lot and it is exciting to be at the front end of it, making stuff up as we go. The script is changing as we are in rehearsals depending on who is in the room and the challenges that come up. It is great I am the writer and an improviser because things come up, like someone is injured and can’t do something anymore. No problem, I will write in the injury and we will just deal with it."

Kung Fu Panties is going to be fun. Personally I haven’t been this excited for a show in awhile. Having seen the 10 minute version, I have expectations for a spectacular night.

"If we accomplish what we have set out to accomplish, which is huge and audacious and extremely ambitious, I think it will be the most fun that you have had in the theatre. I don’t know how else to describe it."

She jokes, "At the end of the day I hope it is so fun and sexy and ridiculous that if you are gay you will leave straight, if you are straight you will leave gay, and if you are bi you will be so happy."