Ladies Night (play)

Ladies' Night is a play by the New Zealand writers Stephen Sinclair and Anthony McCarten about a group of unemployed workers who develop a male strip show. It was first performed in December 1987 at Auckland's Mercury Theatre and is the most commercially successful play in New Zealand's theatre history. It had several national sell-out tours in the UK since 1990 and has been translated into sixteen languages. It continues to play worldwide to popular acclaim. In 2001, the Paris production, in a French adaptation by Jacques Collard, received the Molière Award for Best Comedy. The first season was workshopped with the actors for month before opening, with the season rapidly selling out. Actors included Bruce Hopkins, Michael Lawrence, Shane Dawson, Nigel Harbrow, Ross Duncan and Alison Bruce.

Full Monty lawsuit

In 1998, McCarten launched a multimillion-pound lawsuit in California, US, against the producers of the 1997 film The Full Monty, which has a strikingly similar theme and was the highest-grossing British film at the time. It was dismissed because the film had been made in England. Their attorney was quoted as saying "I've been doing this for 40 years, and this is as solid a copyright case as I've ever seen."

Ladies' Night (play)

Ladies’ Night was a 1920 Broadway farce-comedy in three acts originally written by Charlton Andrews and later reworked by Avery Hopwood. The play was produced by Albert Herman Woods and opened under the direction of Bertram Harrison on August 9, 1920 at the Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre. Ladies’ Night had a run of 360 performances with the final curtain falling in June, 1921. An adaption of Ladies' Night entitled Ladies' Night at the Turkish Bath was produced by George W. Brandt nearly thirty years later at the Selwyn Theater in New York.

Synopsis

Burns Mantle Yearbook, 1921

Jimmy Walters is a bashful man. Because of his unfortunate reaction to the sight of bare shoulders Jimmy is in danger of becoming a recluse. Also a prude. Therefore, his friends decide he should be cured. They take him to a certain fancy-dress ball where he will see so much flesh he will never again be frightened by a little. The ball is raided and in escaping, Jimmy, dressed as a lady, climbs through the window of a Turkish-bath parlor next door. Fearing arrest, he has a brisk time of it avoiding the attendants, and later, being discovered, it is a little difficult for him to explain to his wife that he did not deliberately plan the masquerade.

Ladies' night

A ladies' night is a promotional event, often at a bar or nightclub, where female patrons pay less than male patrons for the cover charge or drinks. In the United States, state courts in California, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have ruled that ladies' night discounts are unlawful gender discrimination under state or local statutes. However, courts in Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington have rejected a variety of challenges to such discounts.

Legality in the United States

Federal law

Claims against ladies' nights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution have failed under the state action doctrine. Similar actions have failed under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1983). Ladies' nights may have federal tax implications, though. Federal claims were also involved in the unsuccessful challenge in Washington (see below).

California

The California Supreme Court has ruled that ladies' days at a car wash and ladies' nights at a nightclub violate California's Unruh Civil Rights Act in Koire v Metro Car Wash (1985) and Angelucci v. Century Supper Club (2007). The Unruh Act provides: "All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex [...] are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever [...]." The court considered the statutory defense that the promotions serve "substantial business and social purposes", but concluded that merely being profitable is not a sufficient defense. The court accused the Wisconsin Supreme Court of "sexual stereotyping" for upholding a similar practice.

Ladies' Night

Ladies' Night may refer to:

Film and television

Music

Other media

Ladies' Night (album)

Ladies' Night is the eleventh studio album by the funk band Kool & the Gang, released in 1979. The album became their first major success especially after the release of the title track, the U.S. #8 "Ladies' Night," and the U.S. #5 follow-up "Too Hot" which both became Billboard Top 10 hits. The album brought a return to the mainstream after a lull in success from 1976-1978. In addition all the cuts from the album reached number five on the disco chart.

Ladies' Night was the album where Kool & the Gang perfected their funky style and made it more mainstream by incorporating some pop and light R&B into the sound. The result was that this album was not only popular during the 1970s black-oriented funk era where the band started, but also during the more popular and diverse disco era. Ladies' Night became their first Platinum album. It also marked the debut of lead vocalist James "J.T." Taylor.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Ronald Bell, Kool & the Gang; except where noted.