Was it in The Season where they talked about "The Changing Room"? The actors were fearful as each night when the nudity was about to happen they could very clearly hear a noise from the audience- a clicking noise- a noise they worried could be the cocking of guns. The staff investigated and discovered it was the sound of patrons raising their opera glasses to get a better look. The clicking noise was the sound of teh opera glasses colliding with their eye glasses.
"I'll always remember Jessica Tandy dropping the apple she was peeling when she saw Maxwell Caulfield lying naked on the sand."
But can you remember the name of the play?
I saw a tour of The Changing Room back in the previous century and the rugby player who needed treatment from the physio was substantially overweight, resulting in two women behind me giggling helplessly and one of them commenting in a loud voice "He hasn't got one!"
Best over-50 boobie flash: Kate Burton showing her breasts to Billy Crudup in the revival of The Elephant Man. In previous productions, it was done with the actress facing upstage.
" Now that she's the legit soprano heiress apparent of Broadway we forget Kelli O'Hara caused the only sensation of the ill advised Wildhorn musical "Dracula" by showing us her boobies."
O'Hara was practically stripped of the rob and was (unnecessarily) full on naked. Melissa Errico also had completely unnecessary nudity in that production, though less of it.
Who could forget the ridiculousness of "PG matinees" as they called them without the nudity.
Philly03 (and the previous poster who mentioned Kelli's "boobies"): fwiw, Kelli was walking upstage when her nightgown "disappeared" in a pretty amazing effect. The lighting was dim, and Dracula covered her quickly with his cape. Her back was to the audience throughout. Anyone seeing her breasts had to have been on the extreme sides of the stage. As nudity goes, it was fairly tasteful, if arguably gratuitous. She was, btw, wearing a g-string.
Ms Errico had a scene in which she unlaced her shirt to give Dracula access to her throat while under his thrall. On occasion, at her whim, she pulled the shirt down far enough to expose a nipple. She was never bare breasted.
"Who could forget the ridiculousness of "PG matinees" as they called them without the nudity."
Anyone who remembers has an active imagination - those matinees were discussed briefly, but never happened. :)
...and yet it ran for far longer than anyone ever expected. How is a mystery. It was such a great cast, and it was gorgeous, but oy! the music! The book! How do you screw up Dracula?
Now here's one absolutely no one will remember - Andrew McCarthy, full frontal (eventually blood-drenched) nudity in The Boys of Winter. Don't remember it? Can't imagine why - it ran one whole week after opening.
It ran for 4 and 1/2 months, although anyone who saw it expected it to close at intermission.
As far as "screwing up Dracula," remember that there is no such thing as a "good horror musical, " for the simple reason that scary don't sing. (And don't bring Sweeney Todd, into the conversation - that's a melodrama.)
"Hair" would be the first one that pops into my head. I didn't find it took me out of the show at all. It was done tastefully enough (my mom was with me on one occasion and she was hardly uncomfortable about it).
I haven't seen too many shows featuring nudity to be honest (King Lear way back).
I know about Oh, Calcutta! and some others (The Blue Room).
How come "Let My People Come" was never released on CD??? I get that it probably has limited appeal, but it seems like it could sell well enough just for the camp factor alone if it was done as a limited release. The only copy I've ever come across is a scratchy digital transfer of the LP that someone did.
BD Wong stripped completely in M Butterfly with his back to the audience. I had first row all the way to the side, and was rather impressed with BD's'endowment'. Nice bubble-butt as well at the time.
There's a missing song on the Let My People Come cast recording transfer that most people have heard: on the original copies, the song "Cunnilingus Champion of Company C" was present, but was switched for a new song at a later date which supposedly appears on most recordings. Interestingly, the LP transfer still has the cunnilingus song instead.
Re Love Valour Compassion--though my top crush would be on Justin Kirk, you guys are right, it was about the actor playing Ramon. The New Yorker archives only had an edited archive of the piece, but:
" The Talk of the Town
Naked Truths
by Alison Rose February 13, 1995 .
ABSTRACT: Talk story about the well-hung nude actor in Terrence McNally's play "Love! Valour! Compassion!" which ran for twelve weeks at the Manhattan Theatre Club. On Feb. 14, after 28 previews, it opens at the Walter Kerr on Broadway. So far, every preview performance has been sold out. The play received the highest praise from the critics, but an informal survey of theatregoers drew attention to some things the critics failed to mention. Straight Woman Upper East Side: The main thing is this young actor who is lying in the sun on his back during a lot of the second act. He's wearing only dark glasses and silver hoop earrings. He's young. Young is the point. I was sitting in the first row, and this actor--his character is called Ramon, or sometimes Chiquita--has his knees bent and his legs are pretty much apart. I kept straining my neck to look around to see if any other people were staring at him, and it seemed, oddly, that they weren't. Then this Ramon character stood up for a few seconds and faced the audience. Now you could see all of his penis, which was extraordinarily long, and everything behind it was huge. It was. Gay Man, Chelsea: It is huge. Absolutely. And I've seen quite a few. Straight Man, Hell's Kitchen: If one goes by the Greek norm--Greek statues are far from well hung--it was a disproportionately long penis... Straight Woman, Bel Air, California: At that play, I just sat there with my mouth wide open, and I was mesmerized by it. Gay Man, Greenwich Village: During the show I was very aware of my head movements, of my head moving back and forth because my eyes were following a naked actor on the stage. Well, I sort of did look around to see if anyone would notice what I was doing.
^Wasn't it the same actor who played it in the film version? I don't remember him being that big. Has the definition of "long" changed since the mid 90s?
Yes, Randy repeated the role in the film. Sadly, the only member of the stage version that was NOT in the film was Nathan Lane, which I felt was a crime. To add insult to injury, Jason (ugh) Alexander played the Lane part. Totally ruined the movie for me.
Julia Roberts wisely (!) said the reason she doesn't do nudity is because she does movies, not documentaries. The same rule might have some bearing for theatre.
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Posted: 10/25/12 at 10:37am