Candace Bushnell’s Is There Still Sex in the City?, based on her most recent book, comes to the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center Saturday July 9. Bushnell, who lives in Sag Harbor, talked to DuJour Media, founded by Jason Binn, about her one-woman show, which ran in New York City through last December before hitting the road.
Your one-woman show follows your career and personal life from before you got to New York City to the present day. What made you decide to tell your story this way?
One-woman shows tend to have an autobiographical element so it seemed like an essential part of the form. But mostly it’s a universal story—a person with big dreams comes to the city to make it. Naturally, there are ups and downs. And now, forty plus years later, there are still ups and downs. Life goes around and around like a hula hoop!
What was the most difficult thing to share with an audience?
People seem to think the show is very revealing, but it doesn’t feel that way to me, probably because it was originally about three hours, and I ended up cutting it down quite a bit. I still have lots and lots of material left for a memoir!
How does it feel to perform on stage?
It’s a lot easier than writing a novel! I’ve been doing lectures and appearances for years, so it’s not all that new, just much more structured. And it’s physical. I workout much more to be able to have the stamina to do it.
Do you get stage fright?
I don’t. At this time in my life, if something made me really uncomfortable, I wouldn’t do it.
“Is There Still Sex in the City?”
What part of the show do your audiences seem most intrigued by?
Probably the fact that my career encompasses much more than Sex and the City the television show. They’re impressed by how many best-selling novels I’ve written.
What have you been surprised about when it comes to your audience?
Mostly how young they are. There are lots of women in their twenties and thirties. They dress up and wear the shoes. I love it.
What have you learned about yourself performing the show?
Sometimes I think I should have pursued an acting career, which was something I thought about doing when I first came to New York and was quite young. I didn’t pursue it because it was so overwhelmingly sexist, and, of course, the casting couch situation was rampant and I didn’t want to deal with that. So it’s nice to be able to explore this part of myself at this time in life.
Your alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw, is also back in the spotlight now. Which of you is doing better in 2022?
I love seeing Carrie Bradshaw back in the spotlight, but she’s definitely going through a lot.
What do you feel is missing on television these days?
I’d love to see adaptations of my books Trading Up and One Fifth Avenue.
