A tragicomic one-woman show on the South, dating, marriage, and therapy has been expanded in Chapel's memoir, Stalking Sly Stallone and Other Unfortunate Choices. Reviews of the show:
"Smart, surprising writing..."
- BACKSTAGE
"The way she bares her life's pain in a completely unsympathetic and unsentimental way, with her dead pan, self-mocking delivery and her wonderfully dry wit is terrific."
- LA THEATRE REVIEW
She attempts to save audience members thousands of dollars and years of grief by explaining what they won't learn in therapy about the pitfalls of dating and marriage. A true daughter of the South...she examines the various forms of insanity underlying different methods of counseling. While Stirling's material is quite hilarious, there is a bitter tinge of disillusionment...in her delivery which often makes her advice even funnier."
- THE HUFFINGTON POST
"Stirling is a street brawler on stage, a natural."
- DAVID FORD, THEATER DIRECTOR
After her debut in the South in the early 1970s, Stirling lands a clandestine affair with the president of a celibate ashram, avoids sex at the "Center for the Lower Self," pursues her fantasy crush on Sylvester Stallone, gets a job working with him in New York, and levitates in the cornfields of Iowa, all while religiously applying every spiritual principal she learns to her own situation. She consistently uses various forms of eccentric self-help and magical thinking in pursuit of men, frequently with disastrous results. In her mid-thirties she finally joins a group of love and sex addicts in California and defiantly refuses to follow suggestions. After trying almost everything on the smorgasbord of self-help, she is increasingly suicidal. Through trial and error, she stumbles on the professional help she needs and starts to build the foundation she does not know is missing. Over time she becomes more whole, piece by piece.
Stirling Chapel hopes to use her twenty years of struggle around relationship and two decades of long-term recovery to inspire and help others. Many of the lessons she learned have very broad application.
And as her therapist has said, "Nothing is funnier than hearing Stirling talk about her deepest pain."
About the Author: Virginia Stirling Chapel grew up in the textile mill South, followed by a long stint in tobacco country. She attended UNC at Chapel Hill and lives with her husband and her dogs in California. Her monologues and improvs have entertained small audiences for almost two decades. To protect family and friends, she now writes under a pen name.
