Whether she’s in middle school or middle age, a woman finds life isn’t always easy. But it can be funny.

At least, that’s the theory behind the play Girls Only—The Secret Comedy of Women. The show was created by Linda Klein and Barbara Gehring, members of the A.C.E. comedy troupe in Denver. It's equal parts scripted play, comedy skits, and improv routines. As Girls Only invades Main Street’s Chelsea Market theater, Houston becomes the latest city in Klein and Gehring’s plan for Girls’ domination of North America.

During its debut weekend, I sat down with Linda Klein, as well as Tracy Ahern and Keri Henson, the two Texas actresses playing the girls.

The two-woman show was inspired by Klein's finding her childhood diaries and asking Gehring, her writing and performing partner, if she had ever read her own as an adult. The two sat down over coffee one afternoon to read and compare. Once their laughter died down, they realized those diaries might be the impetus for their next comedy show.

“In that moment we realized there’s something funny in being a girl and in womanhood,” Klein described. “Let’s explore that. . .When is it funny to be a woman? When is it vulnerable to be a woman? We take all of those moments and let’s put them in a really fun, lighthearted, innocent light and not delve into anything too deep and just have a good laugh at what it is to be a woman.”

Since the idea for the show began with the diaries, so does the actual show. When Houston audiences enter the theater they will essentially enter a slumber party with Adhern and Henson, in panties and bras, already on the stage set, which is dressed to look like a young teen’s bedroom, pink and perfect as only memory and theater can make it.

Ahern and Henson speak directly to the audience and introduce themselves using their real names but then begin to read the diary entries of Klein and Gehring. Playing the parts of Girl 1 and Girl 2, the Texas actresses speak the remembrances of the show’s two creators, but both Ahern and Henson feel that there is something so universal about Girls Only that they’re not exactly playing a role.

“I feel like I’m telling my own story. I don’t feel like I’m telling someone else’s stories when I’m on stage. In fact, I got out my own girlhood diaries in the process of preparing for this and I thought: Oh my gosh, there is so much comedy gold in teenage diaries. It’s all so relatable,” said Ahern.

True experiences

The writers made few changes from its original run in Denver, Klein said. “Originally when we wrote the show we just wrote it out of our own experience and we thought the show was about us. After we did it a couple of times we realized the show isn’t about us at all. It’s about every woman in that audience and their experience, and if we’re doing our job correctly and they’re [the actresses] doing their job correctly, no one in there is thinking about them or me. They’re thinking about their own experience and memories.”

The show piles on skits, songs, videos, and improv bits involving the audience. (Hint: if you’re sitting in the first row, clean out your purse, and if you’re a man, don’t wear a tie.) Along the way, Girls Only hits on many of the high and lowlights of womanhood, those times that might have seemed devoid of any humor in the horrible moment but become comic gold when put on stage in front of an audience of sympathizing women.

“We took the most private moments and we thought those were the ones that we need to put on stage,” said Klein.

From the history of women told with shadow puppets, to what a post-menopausal woman should do with that last box of feminine “product,” to the complex modern dance used to put on pantyhose, Girls Only tries to conquer all those cringe-inducing experiences and turn them into comedy.

Yet, even when the characters Ahern and Henson play interact with the audience the comedy seems more a celebration of the joys and foibles of growing up girl, than a humiliating tumble down memory lane.

Letting go

Klein admits the comedy/variety show nature of the show requires much from its actresses, and both Ahern and Henson have improv experience along with their acting credentials. The audience’s ability to change the show a little each night is a bit of a thrill for the two-woman cast.

“It’s fun for us because you never know what you’re going to get . .we just have to be on our toes,” said Henson.

Though Klein and Gehring still perform the show when their schedules allow, they are presently quite busy sending their comic baby out into the regional theater world. After its two-year run in Denver the show expanded for runs in nine other markets in the U.S and Canada.

When I asked Klein if it was hard letting go of a show she had been so intimately involved with for so many years, she said, “The first time it was very odd because it had been only us for a long time.”

She described early auditions for a new cast. When the first actress began to read an important monologue from the show, she had to stop herself from yelling, “Liar! That’s my story.”

But they got over that sense of ownership at the show’s debut in Des Moines in 2009. Recalling that night, Klein said, “When that audience leapt to their feet, it was sort of out-of-body in the sense that it’s not about me anymore. It’s not my show anymore. This is their show. That was the moment that I realized we created something that could live beyond us, and it just needs to go be its own thing.”

Those growing "Girls" will be throwing slumber parties, impromptu showers, and crafting sessions in Houston until Oct. 14.